Against All Odds
by Oreramar
Summary: Cloud was destined to be the planet's savior, but before he could be born, something went wrong...and the future was altered faster than you can say "Wark." Rated for Safety. Alternate Universe.
1. Prologue: Planet's Hero

She screamed.

And screamed.

And screamed again.

No one heard her. No one answered.

Pain burned steadily in her as her own creation siphoned her lifeblood away, turning it to light, and heat, and finally releasing what was left of it into the air.

Gone forever.

And beyond even the pain was the knowledge…

They had released It. It was awake again. It was aware. It was being given new life, her creation willingly injecting It into themselves, warming It with their own heartbeats, giving It the power of their own souls.

It was gathering strength.

She was weakening – her old wound unhealed, and dozens of new pinpricks stealing what she needed to live.

And then she caught flashes of what was to come. A creation of hers, twisted and malformed by It: human body, silver hair, enraged green eyes. Eyes that glowed with her lifeblood, and with It's terrible knowledge. The malformed creation would find her Black materia – the one her children sealed away long ago – and he would call upon it.

He would call upon her own knowledge.

And he would destroy her with it.

The visions cleared. Her awareness rushed through her body, across its surface. He must not be twisted. He must not be corrupted. He must not…

Too late.

The soul she sought was already tainted black and violet by It.

She panicked.

She pressed at the mother's life force, willing her to return to the lifestream, to take the unborn child with her, where she could cleanse the soul and prevent the fate she saw.

Returning one small life to her blood was small price to pay for the endurance of Life itself.

The mother writhed in pain. Still, she tugged at the soul. The mother doubled over, screaming, and other little lives rushed about her, laying her down, running about for artifacts and equipment and –

And she felt the tainted life slipping away from the mother's protective soul. She reached for that taint, grasping at it, but it slid further, until it laid breathing alone, in its own little body.

She fell back, for she did not have the energy left to take the child's soul by force. She left the mother gasping alone, with little will left to live. She left the infant monster wailing in the cold arms of an uncaring creation. She left them all, retreating deep into herself to rest and recover.

Time passed. More screaming, hot pain as her blood was drawn away.

She saw the meteor falling again, tearing her apart at last.

She saw another future as well, one without the meteor, but she died still as her creation bled her dry and barren.

And she began to hope for a future of life, and peace, and hope.

She knew now that she did not have the strength she once had. There was a time when she could take a life just as easily as she gave it. Now, however…

She needed her creations to help.

Tentative, she sent the first few sparks of something stronger into life. A fierce protector that would care for her. A determined dreamer that would do whatever it took to reach that dream. A surety of what was right embedded in a caring soul.

She watched these creations born, saw what they would be.

They needed more.

Her last child gave birth to another. The infant was weak, and could hardly hear her call, but she whispered to her whenever she could.

Another spark was created. Cheerful, determined, strong with honor and with a drive to be something _more_, something _great_…a hero?

_Hmm…a hero…_

She held her last three sparks back to think. A hero. She would need a real hero. And that would require special placement.

She searched her surface for a suitable location.

There.

Small, far from the creations who harmed her, far from the silver-haired monster, far from everything so the hero could grow untainted by It, unharmed by him. Cold mountain air to give the hero strength. And – yes – a woman there, married, prime for child.

She selected the largest of the sparks and gently pushed it in the right direction.

The spark zipped toward its chosen mother. It stopped above her heart, waiting for its place in life to open. Satisfied, she turned away for moments.

Moments to her were days to her creations.

And in days, so many things can go wrong.

The mountains are a dangerous place for her creation. One false step, one moment standing too long in the wrong place, one inch too near a waiting monster…

And the woman's life returned abruptly to her blood.

The spark lingered, uncertain. It was to be born. It _had_ to be born. So it _would_ be.

By the time she returned her attention to the area, the woman's individual life was long vanished from her surface, and the spark was nowhere in the village.

She searched, but could not find it. Her remaining sparks (a loving, loyal fighter; a mischievous child) she released with no true direction, trusting them to drift and take hold where they would be needed.

Though she could not find her fated hero, her visions of death had eased, so she accepted whatever fate had ordained and retreated again to wait.

And on the craggy ground of Mount Nibel, a golden chocobo emerged from his egg and opened a pair of bright, blue eyes.


	2. Curiosity

"_Wark._"

The tiny gold chocobo shifted, tucking his head into his mother's side.

"Rrrrr…_wark!_"

He screwed his eyes shut, waiting for the other to give up. Instead, he got a tiny talon repeatedly poking the side of his neck.

"_Wark, _Warakk, _wake_!"

He gave up all hope of further sleep at that point. Lifting his head, he blearily blinked through the gloom at the dark shape before him.

"_What you want?_" the chick hissed softly, taking the same quiet tone as his sibling. Their mother slept on beside them, oblivious to their mischievous scheming.

"_Up, Warakk, up! Kuwark go rockplace now. We go with?"_

Warakk sighed and reluctantly lurched to his feet. The black chick before him danced a little on her toes, making a happy noise.

"Should not," Warakk chirped. "This dark-time still. Rockplace far from here. Monster-types out there – this not good."

His sister ignored him, as she often did when he was attempting to be the voice of reason. She hopped and scrambled up the side of the nest, working her way to perch on the rim.

"Wrraaku, wait! We wake motherhen…she help us, yes?"

"No! Wakeno…Motherhen wakeno."

Warakk cocked his head. "Why?"

"No."

Warakk hesitated, looking at the dark bulk of feathers beside him. Their mother was large and strong – she could easily protect them from the monsters in the mountain. But if he woke her, Kuwark would only be in trouble, and when Kuwark was in trouble, he made life miserable for his siblings.

"Yes, then," Warakk said. "No wake motherhen. We find Kuwark – bring back. Fast-time, yes? Like race."

Wrraaku only heard as far as '_no wake motherhen_.' Cheeping softly in excitement, she dropped from view over the nest's edge. Warakk heard her body hit the ground outside, and he hurried to scramble over the nest side himself.

Once outside, the two set off together across the rocky ground.

The chicks had never been out on their own before, let alone during the dark, and so despite Warakk's misgivings he found himself thoroughly enjoying it.

"_Sweek!_ Warakk! Lookit here…"

The gold chocobo clumsily skidded to a halt and backtracked to where his sister had stopped to peer into a crevice. Something had fallen inside and now lay half-wedged between two rocks. The scant starlight glinted off of a curved surface invitingly. Warakk blinked and cocked his head, wondering what it might be. Too shiny for a stick, but shaped wrong to be a rock…

Wrraaku stepped forward and lowered her head, jabbing experimentally at the ground. Once, twice, three times her beak entered the crevice, but each time she came up short. Cheeping impatiently, she backed away and promptly forgot about the shiny curiosity in the rocks.

Warakk sidled over while Wrraaku inspected a bush with prickly leaves. The odd something glinted up at him. Bending down, he reached for the thing with his beak, but found himself too short to grab hold.

The little chocobo stood up straight again and cocked his head, thinking. He picked up one talon and lowered it into the crevice, balancing uneasily on a single twig-thin leg.

Still too short.

Warakk leaned over and swiped at the thing, curiosity eating at his mind. One claw struck the curved end of the shiny object with a quiet _chink_. To his dismay, the contact only made the something slide further out of his reach.

Huffing, he extracted his leg and set about finding a new way to reach that twig-like something, if only to find out just what it was.

Hmm, a twig…perhaps to hook it out…?

Warakk trotted over to the prickle-leafed bush his sister had inspected earlier. Odd, that she was nowhere in sight. No matter. The golden chick leaned forward and opened his beak to bite off a promising stem.

"WARK!"

"SQUAWK!"

"I win!"

"Off – ow! Off, Wrraaku! Oooow!"

Wrraaku scrambled off of Warakk's back. He picked himself up from the bush (which _hurt_) and hurled himself bodily at his sister. Shrieking, the two of them tumbled away in a mess of downy feathers and leaf scraps, and the shiny something was forgotten by both.

Warakk wasn't sure how much time had passed by the time they reached the rockplace; all thoughts of finding his brother and hurrying back to the nest had flown from his mind.

This romp in the dark was too much fun.

"Kuwark!" Wrraaku called out. "Kuwark! Out – we play!"

An answering chirrup resounded from the midst of the jumbled boulders. Moments later, another chick had scrambled to the top of a nearby stone.

"Wrraaku! Wa—"

He stopped short, tilting his head. In the gloomy light of pre-dawn, his feathers looked as black as his sister's – a deceptive trick of shadow masking their bright green.

"Wrraaku – you bring _Warakk_?"

"Yes?"

"Warakk fun-no! Wake motherhen!"

"No wake motherhen," Warakk protested. "Motherhen sleep still. No wake motherhen…this time."

Kuwark thought it through for a moment.

"Play?" Wrraaku suggested.

Kuwark gave up on thinking. "Play!"

Shrieking, the infant green leaped down from his rock to bowl Warakk over. Wrraaku joined in soon after, and eventually little could be seen but a writhing, _wark_-ing mass of downy feathers and twiggy limbs.

Abruptly, Kuwark wrestled his way out of the mess and scrambled to the top of the rock. What little light there was in the sky gleamed on his feathers, highlighting his form against the darkness. Rearing his head back, he squeaked a shrill challenge.

Wrraaku answered first. Head down and stumpy wings pumping, she ran up the side of the rock. Laughing, Kuwark kicked out and knocked her back. Warakk followed with his own attack, leaping as high as he could from the rock's side to dodge Kuwark's initial kicking. Squeaking, the young chicks buffeted at each other with their wings and heads until Kuwark got a lucky hit in. Warakk tumbled down the side of the rock, and Kuwark squeaked his victory to the sky.

Warakk was picking himself up from the dust, ready to try again, when he felt the air change. A smell, a feeling…something was there. Something big, something flying, something feathery…and something most definitely _not_ motherhen.

"Wait, stop!"

Wrraaku paused in her charge at the rock. She and Kuwark stared questioningly at their brother for barely a moment before they decided it was nothing.

"_Wark_," Kuwark said derisively. "Warakk fun-no. We play."

"But…bad thing! Bad thing coming! Smell!"

The chicks tilted their heads back and whiffed at the air. Something both sharp and sour filtered into their beaks…something they had never smelled before. They shuffled uneasily, exchanging glances.

"Nest, now?" Wrraaku finally suggested in a very small voice.

"Yeah," Kuwark agreed readily. He took a step forward –

"_KUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!"_

A dark, monstrous shape exploded from the darkness, and in an instant, Kuwark was gone. Warakk felt Wrraaku vanish from his side, heard her running, shrieking, back in the direction of their nest. He caught a flash of motion above him and, acting by instinct, leapt upward to dig claws and beak into a putrid, filthy, feathered hide.

The thing squawked. Warakk felt muscles move above him and heard his brother's screaming voice fall down and away, impacting the ground and jolting into silence with the thud. The thing swerved and jerked violently; one instant, Warakk was holding himself up with his beak and scrabbling at whatever he could reach with his soft little talons, and the next he tumbled through thin air, desperately flapping useless, stubby wings.

By happy accident, Warakk hit the ground along a slight slope and rolled enough that the impact was lessened. The chick struggled to his feet and looked about quickly.

All was still.

Warakk held himself frozen for several moments more, but heard nothing except his own rapid heartbeat and breathing. He relaxed with a sigh and set off in search of Kuwark.

He found the green chick, bloody but breathing, on the ground not too far away. Kuwark didn't move or speak when Warakk nudged him; he was out cold. Warakk stood still for a moment, wondering what to do, when the thing's smell hit him again.

Too close…behind!

Warakk whirled to see a wide, jagged-edged beak flying closer, beginning to close, no time to think, barely time to scream one last –

"_WARK!_"

The beak suddenly snapped upward, falling just short of Warakk and Kuwark's huddled bodies, as the neck of the beast was born viciously downward by an enraged black weight. The battle ended in seconds as motherhen – Warwaka – plunged her beak into the back of the creature's neck, killing it almost instantly.

Warwaka turned her brown gaze on Warakk then, and he shivered. The excitement of the night had worn away, leaving bone-deep weariness behind. Oddly enough, now that the danger had passed, Warakk felt more terrified than he had during the monster attack.

The huge motherhen stepped over the monster's carcass to examine her chicks. The smell of Kuwark's blood hit her, and she jerked her head back in alarm. Warakk kept his eyes on hers, and so he noticed when the surprise in them turned to blank acceptance.

"Come," Warwaka ordered. She turned and began to walk back to the nest. Warakk scrambled to his feet, stepped forward, and paused. Kuwark was still laying on his side, one wing bent beneath him uncomfortably.

"Come," Warwaka repeated, never looking back. Still Warakk lingered.

His brother was injured and may not recover. If Kuwark could not make it back to the nest on his own, the wild would take him. It was the way of life; though Warakk was still young, this much he knew. And if his motherhen's actions were any indication, it was a way followed as one follows instinct; instantly and without question.

But some part deep inside Warakk quailed at the thought of abandoning Kuwark for other creatures to take – the same part that had driven him to attack a monster well over ten times his size moments before. _This is not right_, that part of him whispered. _This is not You._

Decision made, Warakk turned back around and nuzzled Kuwark in the side, nudging him until he blearily opened one eye.

"Kuwark," he said gently. "Come. Safe. We go nest."

"Nest-go?"

"Yes. Up, up. Here."

Slowly, Kuwark made his way upright. He swayed alarmingly, but Warakk dipped beneath his side, supporting some of his brother's weight.

Gradually, painfully, the two brothers made their way home.

Light was appearing over the distant peaks by the time the chicks returned to the nest. Kuwark collapsed outside it, unmoving but for the ragged rising and falling of his side. Warakk paused and actually looked at the wound for the first time.

The blood was dark and colorless in the pale light, and it had spread over Kuwark's lighter feathers so far that the wound itself was difficult to spot. Guessing by the form of his feathers and the way some of them fluttered half-loose or were cut off at the ends, though, the cut was long and probably deep.

Warakk felt something inside him sink down to his toes.

What could he possibly do to help?

Kuwark shivered in the cold mountain air. He tried to curl up, but didn't manage much more than moving his legs a short distance inward. Warakk looked from his brother to the edge of the nest.

It would be warmer inside, tucked up against motherhen.

Kuwark didn't have the strength for it.

So Warakk did the next best thing – mindless of the blood staining his feathers, he curled himself close around his brother and kept him warm until daylight properly colored the mountainside.

Exhausted, Warakk slept.

When he woke hours later, it was to the comforting sight of greens enough for both of them, laid out on the ground by Warwaka.

Kuwark would live.


	3. Monsters in the Nest

Kuwark bent his head and looked up with pleading eyes. Warwaka pushed him away with her beak. The green chocobo staggered, straightened, and stared at his motherhen. Wrraaku cheeped piteously and tried to scoot closer, only to receive the same strange treatment and a warning hiss from Warwaka's beak.

_You go now_, the hiss said. _This MY nest. Go_.

Warakk perched on the edge of the nest, watching in confusion. Why was motherhen pushing his siblings away? Why not him as well? And for that matter, he wondered, glancing down at himself and then up at the three chocobos outside the nest, when did his siblings get so big?

For while Warakk was much the same stubby-winged chick he had been a year ago, Kuwark and Wrraaku now rivaled motherhen in size.

Kuwark was the first to turn away, the sun glinting oddly on the bare strip of skin that marked the scar he received so long ago. The chocobo broke into a reluctant trot.

"Kuwark!" Warakk squeaked. His brother never looked back, vanishing out of view around an outcropping of rocks.

Wrraaku mewled again, once more trying to scoot in close under Warwaka's gaze. The motherhen's eyes narrowed. Squawking viciously, the bigger black chocobo charged her fully-grown daughter. Wrraaku stumbled back, turned tail, and fled.

Warwaka watched for an instant. Finally satisfied, she returned to the nest and her strange, slow-growing, instinct-defying golden chick.

The next morning, Warakk awoke to find his motherhen sitting proudly beside him atop three new eggs, and he got the distinct impression that he had seen this happen before.

* * *

Warakk's stomach growled loudly. It had been three days since the eggs appeared, and in all that time, Warwaka had not moved from the nest for food.

Another sound rose from the gold chocobo's middle, and it was answered by the motherhen's own empty stomach. Warakk stood and clambered his way around the edge of the nest to climb up onto the rim. Warwaka watched him, but did and said nothing.

The little chocobo wobbled slightly on the nest's edge, glancing quickly about for something – anything – of interest. A bit of green nearby caught his eye, and he swiveled his head to see a decent patch of greens.

Mind made up, Warakk hopped down and dashed over to fill his stomach. Each mouthful of green stuff tasted better than anything he could remember, and it wasn't long before he was satisfied. Turning back to the nest, however, he paused. _Motherhen is hungry too_, whispered that little part of him. _Why not take some greens back to her?_

Warakk cocked his head slightly, considering the thought for a moment. It felt like something he should do. It was something motherhen used to do for him, before he could climb about and feed himself. Was this instinct?

The chocobo turned and ripped up several mouthfuls of green leaf and stalk. Then, gathering the wad up in his beak, he trotted back to the nest, scrambled up the side, and presented his gift to motherhen.

Warwaka regarded the greens with confusion. She sniffed at them, but did not take the food. Warakk dropped it at the nest's edge. Warwaka turned away to studiously ignore the offering. Warakk felt his own confusion rising.

"Motherhen, eat? You hungry. I hear it."

She ignored his words as effectively as she ignored the greens beneath her beak. Warakk looked up at his motherhen, down at the food, and gave up. Leaving the greens there should Warwaka change her mind, he slid back down into the nest and leaned against her side to wait out another long, boring day.

The greens lay forgotten, slowly withering to brown.

* * *

"_FOOD! FOOD! FOOD! FOOD! FOOD! FOOD! FOOD! FOOD – "_

Warwaka skidded to a halt in front of the nest. Three pale beaks rose into view, clamoring wordlessly now for the assorted greens she carried. Then there were a few brief moments of silence as the new chicks devoured their portions.

"Food!"

"FOOD!"

"_FOOD! FOOD! FOOD! FOOD! FOOD!_"

Motherhen shot off again.

Warakk, perched atop a nearby rock, clicked his beak together and scrunched up his brow.

Had _he_ been like this after hatching?

Curious, Warakk rose from his perch for the first time since the cheeping bodies and frantic motions of motherhen roused him in the dark of that morning. Tiptoeing over, he scrabbled up the nestside to peer over it.

Three pink, wrinkly little bodies wiggled in the center of the nest. Only the barest amount of fluff covered them, all of it white and grey without a tint of color. And they had no eyes. Where eyes were supposed to be, the ugly little creatures possessed bulging purple spots half the size of their heads.

Warakk slid back down to the ground just as motherhen charged back into view.

"_FOOD! FOOD! FOOD! FOOD! FOOD!_"

Warakk hopped about his motherhen's feet, seeking a different sort of attention.

"Motherhen! MOTHERHEN!"

"What, Warakk?"

"Monsters in nest – monsters!"

Warwaka hurriedly checked the nest, scanning it quickly. Nothing met her eyes except for three perpetually hungry chicks, swallowing their newest mouthfuls and already clamoring for more.

"No monsters. Warakk, stay. Get food."

Not waiting for her oldest son's protests, she vanished again in a puff of dust and feathers loosened by stress. Warakk blinked after her.

"If not monsters, then…"

He looked down at himself, trying to reconcile his downy gold fluff with the pink-grey-eyeless things in the nest.

How could they be like him?

* * *

Warakk didn't venture near the nest again for more days than he could count. He knew it was a very long while, though, because he had gotten into the habit of scratching a thin line in the dirt below the rock he claimed as a perch every morning. And so the little chocobo was staring down at the mess of scratches, trying to find a meaning in them beyond _sunrise, sunrise, sunrise_, when he finally decided that he had avoided the monster-things quite long enough.

He waited for Warwaka to rush away again on her never-ending quest for more and more greens, then approached the rough mound warily. Warakk paused just outside it, half-closing his eyes to listen.

Rustling.

Soft cheeps.

He hadn't heard the chorus for food since…

Half the scratch marks? More? Less?

A long while.

He lifted a still-tiny talon and hooked it into the sticks. Instantly, the sounds inside vanished. Curious, Warakk climbed quickly and peered over the edge.

And stared.

Three balls of fluff – one green, one pink, and the last a strange translucent white – connected to three pairs of beady dark eyes stared back up at him.

Where did the monsters go? Warakk cocked his head and chirped softly to himself.

He nearly fell off the edge of the nest when the green one popped its head up _and chirped back_.

"Safe?" it lisped, the word only half-recognizable. Still, it was a word.

Monsters didn't speak beyond the all-recognizable cries for food or hunger.

"Safe," the pink one said. "Safe."

Green and pink visibly relaxed and turned back to their soft shifting and squeaking. The white one, however, refused to move except to turn its head a little, open its beak, and ask,

"_Safe?_"

Warakk didn't move.

The white stared at him.

He stared back.

White's breathing slowed in a familiar reaction: _if it thinks I am dead…_

Warakk nodded slowly. "Safe."

White relaxed, and the older golden chick settled himself more comfortably on the nest's edge.

It seemed he had new siblings.

And whatever had happened to the monsters didn't matter anymore.

That night, for the first time in many weeks, Warakk slept in the nest with his family.


	4. Hiding and Finding

Warakk could not _believe_ he was doing this.

He paced another lap between the nest and the big rock, keeping his eyes fixed on the dust before his feet. He couldn't count his steps, but he sounded out the beat of them in his head as he trudged back and forth again, and again, and again. Finally, when he judged it had been long enough, he lifted his head and sounded one clear, albeit squeaky, "_Wark!_"

Muffled giggles immediately rose from a stand of greens not far away. Warakk sighed and began to trot in that direction while Motherhen watched over them all from her rocky perch above the nest.

As Warakk drew nearer the greens, the giggles subsided slightly. He deliberately passed the foliage – an act which drew an immediate squeak of laughter. Warakk meandered around another rock, one just large enough at its widest to hide him if he crouched and shuffled along, and snuck up behind the giggling pink-feathered chick.

As Warakk drew nearer, his sister, Korru, sucked in a breath and began to rise, stretching her neck out to peer through the greens in hopes of catching sight of him again. Warakk paused long enough to shake his head at this obvious mistake.

Then he leapt.

"_KWEEEEEEEEEEH!_"

Motherhen's head snapped about at her chick's call of distress, but she relaxed when Korru burst from the bushes with Warakk snapping at her side. The gold chick, twice the size of his younger sister, was using his greater strength to full advantage, blocking her attempts to reach the nest as she shrieked and stumbled.

"Monster got you, monster got you!" Warakk punctuated his call with another snap to Korru's side. She dodged with a squeal.

"Motherhen! Warakk mean!"

"You hide bad, monster eat you!"

"Not!"

"So!" Warakk replied, inspiration striking. "Monster eat you all up, Korru gone now, Korru ghost-beast now."

Korru shrieked again in sudden fear, darting around Warakk with greater speed than before and racing for the nest, screaming a chant of "_Not not not not not!"_ the entire way. Warakk watched her go, momentarily satisfied, before remembering that he had two more chicks to seek out. He turned around with a huff and renewed his search.

He could not _believe_ he was playing such a hatchling-game as _Hiding_.

In very little time, Warakk had found Raduko, his green sister, crouched amid a pile of reddish-colored loose rocks and scree. Though she had remained still and quiet, unlike Korru, her color had stood out so blaringly against the stones to Warakk's sight that he spotted her in moments and was quick to chase her back to the nest as well.

His brother, Rakkawar, was proving far more challenging.

In all honesty, Warakk had expected to find Rakkawar first when the little chick convinced him to play. Every sense that the gold got from the tiny white was that of frailty, a sort of wavering here-but-not-here feeling. There was something about Rakkawar, something about his nearly-translucent white feathers and red-tinged eyes, something that suggested he might not last long in the harsh mountains. As such, Warakk had never imagined that his search for the chick would take him so far from the nest and from Motherhen's protective presence.

Warakk lifted his beak and tested the air yet again. And yet again, he found a soft tinge of scent that was Rakkawar's excitement, twisted with another smell that Warakk had only ever caught when he or one of his former siblings had spotted something strange and interesting for the first time.

Curiosity.

Feeling his own sense of wonder rising, Warakk continued his stumbling descent of the almost-path he (and Rakkawar, it would seem) had found. The rocks here were not as tall or wide as they were higher in the mountain, where the nest sat, and the air tasted warmer and thicker to Warakk. He realized, as he skirted around yet another boulder too big to hop over, that he had never tasted air like this, and he had never gone along a path that fell so steadily downwards.

Where could it be leading him?

Warakk rounded another bend, and there, on a level bit of path, was Rakkawar. The white chick wasn't tucked behind stone or under scrub; instead, he sat where one side of the path fell away in a short, steep cliff face, peering over the edge with a hint of wonder on his face. Before Warakk could make a sound to announce his presence, Rakkawar lifted his head and looked directly at his golden brother.

"Warakk," Rakkawar greeted. "There funny smell. What those?"

Game forgotten for the moment, Warakk trotted over to where Rakkawar sat. Crouching down himself for better balance, the young chocobo peered downwards.

Below them was a wide gorge, framed on both sides by tall cliff faces. The two chocobos sat on a relatively low ledge on one of these cliffs, and their ledge, while wide enough for the both of them to walk abreast, could not have been more than an eighth of the width of the path below. It was flat, clear of rocks except at the very edges, and darkened by the shadow of the mountains. Despite the darkness and distance, however, Warakk could clearly see a small group of creatures below, all of them making their way along the path, up the mountain. It was hard to tell from above, but Warakk thought they walked on their two hind legs, like chocobos, yet they didn't seem to have any wings or feathers. One of them was white, while the others were of darker colors he couldn't see properly through the gloom, and each had a differently-colored patch of fur at the very top of its head. They were at once repulsive and attractive; Warakk simultaneously wanted to run home, hide, and never see such things again, and he wanted to go down, greet them, and become friends.

Then, all at once, their smell hit him.

Sharp, tangy, overpowering, dominant. The smell of a plant-eater and the smell of a hunter in one. The scent of something natural – something any chocobo, rabbit, squirrel, or bug Warakk had ever encountered had at the base of their scent – overlaid with the scent of something _wrong_…like a monster.

Warakk's heart raced. Monsters, or friends? Hunters, or grazers? Run away, or go to?

"Warakk?"

Rakkawar's soft little voice cut through his musings just enough to gain his attention. Warakk turned hazy, confused eyes on his little brother.

"Scent scary. What those?"

Tongue dry, Warakk answered in the only way he could.

"I not know."

The two chicks watched the strange creatures until they had walked out of their sight, and remained perched on the ledge until the strange halting sounds the creatures made had faded from their hearing. Only then, when nothing remained except the lingering remnants of the beasts' electrifying scent, did either Warakk or Rakkawar dare to move again.

The gold chick stood first, shaking dust from his feathers.

"Come, Rakkawar," he said. "Nest go now."

Rakkawar remained still for a moment longer before joining his older brother on the path upwards.

"Those scary," the white said softly. "Not want…no see again. Not want see again, _all time_."

"I want see again," Warakk replied, surprising even himself. He stopped walking for a moment to mull over the warks that had risen from his beak, seemingly of their own accord. He wanted to see these creatures again? Why?

Rakkawar also stopped, utterly bewildered, but unable to find the words to express this. Warakk struggled himself with the idea. Again, why? It was just a smell…terrifying, alluring, danger and safety, and it didn't make any sense. It felt, Warakk tentatively decided, like he was torn in two pieces on the inside. A part of him was like Rakkawar – frozen with horror at the mere thought of those creatures. But another part…

Warakk shook his head and forced a laugh for his little brother.

"Warakk feather-brain," he said in false self-mockery. "Hungry mess up scents. Go nest now?"

Rakkawar immediately relaxed, feeling that the threat and danger of those _things_ was far gone now.

"Hungry. Go nest," he agreed, and the two began to amble up the path again. Once they reached the familiar realm of sharp, cool air and the path leveled off again, Warakk remembered his original purpose in seeking out his brother.

"Rakkawar," he said, gaining the white's attention. With a grin in his blue eyes, he leaned over and snapped playfully at the chick's feathers, drawing surprised squeak from the little one. "Monster got you."

* * *

That night, as the chicks snuggled against Motherhen to sleep, Rakkawar suddenly remembered the encounter with the strange beasts in the mountain.

"Motherhen?" he said, drawing sleepy groans from his two sisters. Warakk raised his head in curiosity as Motherhen turned her attention from preening to her youngest son. Once the white was reasonably certain of his mother's focus, he plowed on ahead. "Saw _things_. Not now, today. They smell…real, real-not, hunt, graze. I want hide, I want run. Scary. What those?"

"Monster?" Motherhen suggested, a little confused. Rakkawar paused, having never seen or smelled a live monster up close – he could not compare them.

Warakk, however, had.

"Not monster," he said quickly. "Two-leg-walk, but not wings."

Motherhen sat still much longer, thinking so long that both Rakkawar and Warakk feared she had fallen asleep without answering.

"Humans," she finally whispered. Warakk shivered. The wark of the word carried a bad sound, with none of the mixed good he had smelled in the creatures. Rakkawar burrowed further into Motherhen's black feathers. He did not venture another question, but Warakk…

Warakk wanted to know more.

"What…_humans_?"

"Humans. They…make hold still, but not touch. Put weight on back and in beak, and make run this way that way fast slow stop with weight. I…I not know. They…no let run where want. Beak-weight makes hold still. Box-nest, all cover over like cave but not like cave, make hold still. Once, made me hold still. I find path, run away. Humans not-good."

Warakk waited for more, eager to soak up new knowledge from a talkative Motherhen, but she fell silent and tucked her head under her wing. He tried one more time.

"Motherhen? Why humans not-good?"

"Go sleep," she mumbled. "Forget, go sleep."

Warakk stared through the pitch darkness, unable to see Motherhen's bulk beside him, though he could feel her warmth and the motion of her breathing. She was falling asleep quickly, and his siblings already were. He was now wide-awake and restless, but he could do nothing but slump against her side and wait for sleep to finally take him as well. All the while, his mind whirled enough to make him dizzy. Nothing Motherhen told him made any sense (holding a chocobo still without touching them? Weight forcing direction and speed out of a chocobo's run? What was this?) and none of it reconciled with his desire to see these creatures again.

He shouldn't see them again.

But he wanted to…up close!

Without really meaning to, Warakk recalled the path from the other day and wondered if there was a way to get down there, to reach the place the humans walked. He wondered what was at each end of the path…a nest at one, a lake or greens ground at the other? He wouldn't know unless he could look.

How to look?

He would have to sneak away when none of the others were looking. Simple enough with Motherhen; as he grew larger, she seemed to pay a little less attention to his movements than to his three new siblings'.

Perhaps another game of Hiding. Then, while they hid, he could sneak down to that path again…

Warakk's breathing slowed and he fell from his half-formed plans into a dream of terrifying smells and creatures, underlaid by a lovely warmth in his chest which told him that, despite the fear, everything in that dream was _right_.


	5. Watching

Warakk knew that Korru was hiding in that brush again, and he could hear Raduko's breathing from a nearby clump of rocks, and a tuft of white sticking out of that cleft over there clearly told him where Rakkawar hid.

He bypassed them all, faking a look of concentration and ignoring the giggles that rose behind him. Wandering further and further in false search, Warakk soon found himself out of their sight. His concentration intensified, and his loose meandering changed to a determined trot. He knew where he was going, and he was going there _now_.

Sure enough, the beginning of the path, half-hidden behind an outcropping of stone, was right where he remembered it. Warakk hurried down it, stumbling several times in his haste, until he finally reached the ledge over the greater path.

Warakk peered down and realized it was too far to jump, and his wings were not big enough for flight yet. The ledge he perched on was a dead end in one direction, fading off against the cliff face to nothing, and in the other…

Warakk eyed the jumble of boulders with some doubt. They went up. He wanted to go down.

Then, he remembered the now-daily exercise of climbing in and out of the nest. Every time, his ultimate goal was down, but he always had to go up first. What if this might be the same?

Willing to give it a try, at least, Warakk clambered up the stone pile. When he reached the top and looked down the other side, he had to let out a soft _wark_ of victory.

A way down!

Feeling very light on the inside, Warakk began to hop downward along a series of outcroppings and ledges, one level at a time, until he reached the floor of the great path at long last.

The shadows were cool and blue, though the air was both thick and warm, and it was so silent that Warakk tensed every time his claws scratched against the rocky ground. No humans walked here now, but he remained watchful – they could emerge at any moment, from either direction. Now that the chocobo thought about it, he wasn't sure just what he _would_ do when faced with a human at such close quarters.

_Go back to the nest_, the terrified part of him whispered incessantly. He almost obeyed this instinct, but then his curiosity and desire to meet one of these creatures kicked back in. Going back now would do nothing but delay this moment, and he had already gone so far.

Swallowing his fear, Warakk stepped down fully onto the great path. He waited there for a long moment, his heart pounding. No monsters sprang out to eat him, no humans held him still without touching him.

Feeling a little better, Warakk contemplated which direction to walk first. One way seemed to go up, higher into the mountains. The other way went down.

He'd had enough of high up in the mountains. It was high time he found out what things were like in the lower areas.

Warakk turned to his left and started downwards. The slope of the path was steep, but nothing he – born and bred in the mountains – couldn't handle. Soon the ravine began to lighten, shadows fading back as Warakk trotted forward, and the air became ever-so-slightly warmer than before. Surprisingly, the golden chocobo found this warmer air very comfortable, if perhaps a bit strange to his senses. It felt like…

Home.

The path grew lighter still, and quiet, peaceful sounds rose ahead. The songs of smaller birds rang out, accompanied by the quiet rush of a small stream or two, and, above it all, the halting murmurs of humans. The smell of them drifted around Warakk, both terrifying and intoxicating. He felt all the feathers along his spine stand on end and his heart started to pump blood faster and faster, surging energy through his limbs. Fighting down trembles, the little chick slowed to a walk, then to a low, slinking motion along the edge of the path. Cautiously, he peered around a sharp corner in the cliff. His beak dropped open and he sat frozen, stunned by the sight before him.

Unfiltered sunlight shone down on the largest flat plateau he had seen in the mountains. It illuminated patches of green grass and bare, grey stone, sparkling water and trees far fuller than the scraggly brush he was familiar with. And, amongst the natural beauty of the mountains, the humans had built the biggest nests he had ever seen.

All enclosed like caves, but of a shape too strange and regular to be anything _real_, they sat in a rough circle, as though the box-nests were only the beginnings of an even bigger, open-topped nest. Though they were still at a distance, they were still clearly massive to Warakk's eyes, each one almost too big for him to take in. As he stared, however, he noticed something odd about these nests, something which stirred his curiosity again.

The tops were enclosed, but then, so were all the sides he could see.

So how did the humans get _into_ them?

There was only one way to find out. He had to get closer.

Almost panting in his excitement, Warakk slid out of the mountain's shadow and into the sunlight. Still staying close to the edge of the path, now hidden by grass instead of by rocks, he hurriedly stumbled down into the village proper and began to sneak around the far outside edge of the nest-circle.

From there, he could see odd square indentations in the walls of the nests, some clear but for a glint of light which suggested _something_ was there, others solid and differently-colored. A few of the clear squares were high, high off of the ground. If these were the entrances, how did humans get up so high?

Perhaps they climbed.

Warakk turned the idea over and over in his mind. It was how he and his siblings moved between the inside and the outside of their nest, after all. Humans might easily do the same. Still, he couldn't be sure…

He blinked, then thought the thought again. Yes, it made sense. He couldn't be sure _until he saw a human do it_.

Now this was far more interesting than playing Hiding with his siblings.

Another loud, halting human noise arose from a nearby nest, higher than any other human noise he had hears before. It sounded…happy. Warakk perked his head up and snuck toward the sound, careful to stay in the tall grasses. When he finally judged himself even with the sound, he cautiously parted the grass with his beak and peered out at the side of one of the nests.

Two humans sat on the ground, one very tall and the other very tiny. The tall one had long, dark fur flowing from the top of its head, and the small had the same, though perhaps a bit shorter than the first's. Warakk tipped his beak up slightly and took a whiff of the air. It was slightly sweet, slightly musty, heavily tinged with the general scent of humans, but tempered by a less-fake, more-real sort of warmth. A heavier, warmer sweetness rose from the flat, round _thing_ the small human was eating, and this bit of scent made Warakk's mouth water.

The humans – which Warakk thought smelled very female – sat close together, so the younger one was leaning on the older. While the girl's human paws were full of the round-sweet-warm-smell, the woman's paws gripped a flat, hard, square object that faintly smelled of wood and something sharp and only slightly natural. Her eyes seemed to be fixed on this object, and her voice rose and fell beautifully in patterns Warakk couldn't recognize, but felt drawn to. She often pointed to the surface of the object, which the little girl looked at with great interest. The woman then flipped over a thin square of whatever this mysterious thing was made of – Warakk caught a confusing glimpse of black markings under a brighter, bigger image – and her voice rose in warmth and intensity.

The little girl opened her mouth, the corners of it stretched wide, and emitted the same high, happy, halting sound which had first drawn Warakk there.

A thought hit him. He ducked his head, tucking it under his wing to muffle the sound, and laughed experimentally.

"_Rrk-rk-rk-rk-rk-rk-rk_."

The human's _ah-ah-ah-ah-ah_…could that be laughter?

Monsters never laughed. Bad things never laughed.

Were humans bad things, or was the girl laughing?

Warakk's head started to hurt, so he abandoned the question and turned back to watching the humans in the grass. He observed everything – how the mother used her paw to smooth back the daughter's hair, how the daughter leaned into the mother's side, how their voices rose and fell and changed speed and volume in a hypnotic dance of sound, how they picked up and ate the round-warm-sweet-smells, how they laughed at the square thing in the mother's hands, though it did nothing but sit there, cold and still unless she moved it. And the more Warakk watched, the more unaware he was of the rest of the world – the sun moving through the sky, the growing chill of the air, his siblings and Motherhen up on the mountaintop – until the motherhuman looked up at last, made another series of noises to her daughter, and stood up.

Then Warakk realized that the sky was turning red on one side, and dark on the other. The air had become cooler, closer to the daytime temperature of his home. All at once, he remembered the game he had purposely abandoned – had his siblings realized he wasn't looking for them? Did Motherhen know he was gone?

He had to get home!

Scurrying to his feet, he threw one last glance at the humans. The girl was looking at the grass curiously, and her mother looked over her shoulder to call her.

"_Tifa!_"

Tee-fah…

If it was a name, Warakk decided as he entered the ravine-path again, eyes open for his way home, it was a very pretty one.


	6. A Meeting

Warwaka was worried.

This is not at all usual for a chocobo. Worrying typically involves a measure of deep thought, an exploration of the remembered past and a projection of the future, things that don't come easily to their species. Adapting to life meant that most of a chocobo's brain is concerned with the here and now – mating, shelter, food, all in a continuous cycle from birth to death. Very little energy can be directed to idle contemplation, and so worry arises only from the most dire or pressing of circumstances.

And Warwaka was _very_ worried.

It was Warakk.

That little chick was confusing all of Warwaka's hardwired instincts, crossing those which should never be forced to cross and tangling all the others, and he did much of it merely by existing.

Warwaka's instincts told her that rearing a chick should not be so hard.

But her instincts seemed to be wrong about so many things…

For example, instinct demanded that each clutch of eggs laid should grow to adulthood and be able to leave the nest in a single seasonal cycle. From mating season to mating season, the nest should fill and empty again, making room for the next group of chicks. It was a simple fact of life, one enforced without thought or analysis, reason or doubt.

Warakk should be long gone, out on his own, fending for himself.

But instinct also demanded that the golden chick was still too small to leave the nest, that a chocobo so tiny relied on his mother for food, shelter, and safety, although he finally seemed to be at the stage where he could wander about on his own.

Two instincts, one telling her to push Warakk out, the other telling her to keep him safe under her wing.

Trying to think about it too much only confused her, so she simply allowed the chick to stay.

Instinct also failed to prepare her for the questions he would ask. Always, when she least expected it, he would let lose a _Why_ that defied all possible _Whys_. "_Why are monsters bad? Why do chocobos run? Why do greens grow?_" – these were easy to answer, and seemed to be questions almost every chocobo chick asked. Monsters are bad because they eat chocobos, chocobos run to get away from monsters, greens grow to feed chocobos. If Warakk only ever asked questions like those, Warwaka would not be quite so confused about him.

Instead, he asked impossible questions, like "_Why is the sky blue?_" or "_Why does water run down the mountain?_"

How does a chocobo answer such things?

How does a chocobo _wonder_ such things?

It made her head hurt.

But it didn't make her head hurt quite as much as what he was up to recently did.

Warakk had taken to vanishing during the day, every day. He would distract his siblings, and then slip away unnoticed, sometimes returning only a little while later, other times disappearing until the darkness of night was settling over the mountain. Warwaka had seen him do this for…how long?...long enough for her newest chicks to grow to nearly Warakk's own size. Long enough that they had abandoned the hiding games popular among the youngest chocobos and moved on into the fighting games which Warakk still loved.

How long didn't matter. What did was the fact that every day, when Warakk returned to the nest at last, his scent carried traces of an odd hunter-grazer-real-fake-frightening-familiar tang.

Humans.

It was not strong on him – he had not contacted them, it seemed – but the fact it was there at all made Warwaka draw back in instinctive alarm every time she smelled him approaching the nest. The chicks had taken to purposely sleeping on one of her sides while Warakk slept on the other, citing fear of the scent, and rarely ever needed to be distracted while he slipped off again during the day, they avoided him so intently.

If Warwaka went with a first instinct, she would drive him from the nest immediately.

If only it were that simple.

She had lived among humans once. The smell frightened her still – she would always associate fear with the hunter-fake part of it – but there was a certain familiarity in it, something that called up hazy memories of warmth, a full belly, flexible hands delicately scratching that one spot on her neck she could never reach on her own…

Warwaka blinked, coming back to reality to find one claw half-raised and the spot itching. She put the claw down and shook her neck in an attempt to make the itch subside. It lessened, but a shivering sensation remained just under her skin right there, so the big black chocobo sought instead to ignore it.

Warakk.

Warakk and humans.

Warakk smelling of humans.

Humans were a threat.

Chocobos should not smell of humans.

Humans were kind.

She knew humans.

She knew Warakk.

Warakk.

Should he stay in the nest?

He was so confusing.

Warwaka had noticed him, several nights ago, sitting down and muttering to himself when he thought no one was listening. The more attention she paid, the more often she noticed this strange new habit of his, and the more she realized that he was constantly muttering the same two sounds to himself, over and over again. His voice was often frustrated, as though he were trying to make the sounds fit properly in his beak, as though they weren't coming out properly.

"_Teeh-hah…teeh-hchah…teeh-ah…tee-hah…_"

It frightened her. No chocobo had business trying to make sounds chocobos _couldn't_ make, and here was her Warakk, attempting just that.

He had also taken to assigning strange, unnatural lilts to his _warks_, developing a rhythmic accent which rose and fell in sound, always along patterns only he seemed to understand. He had also begun using sounds which made no word – sounds which he used as though they carried just as much meaning, even though he made them up. Warwaka could not understand where he may have picked up such habits…no chocobo she had ever heard had such a peculiarity of speech.

A tiny flash of motion and glint of gold caught the corner of her eye, and she turned her head just in time to see Warakk sneaking off again, slinking away in the same direction he always did.

Warwaka was worried.

This was not at all usual for a chocobo.

* * *

Warakk knew the path so well that he could traverse it with his eyes closed, if he really wanted to. He knew all the best spots to hide, should a human come down the path, and he knew which places he needed to sprint across just in case. He could climb up and down the boulder-path in a fraction of the time it had taken him at first. Every inch of it was familiar to him.

Just as the human sounds were also slowly becoming familiar.

It hadn't taken him long to realize they were words, and carried as much meaning as his own warks (perhaps even more, he thought, absently trotting toward that glow of light which signaled the end of the ravine path). As he had first suspected, the little girl's name seemed to be _Tifa_ (how _did_ they make that '_ffff' _sound?), while the girl called the woman "_mama_" (another impossible noise…). He couldn't understand all of what they were saying, but he knew the rising sound of a question and the tone of an answer now, and could generally make a guess if they used certain words often enough.

Like 'cookie.'

The warm-round-sweet things which he had seen and smelled on that first day were called 'cookies'.

Warakk wanted to taste a cookie.

Would it taste like the word did, he wondered?

_Koo-kee._

The little chocobo paused behind a patch of thick scrub and stones long enough to indulge in a brief fantasy where he walked up to the girl and asked if he could try a cookie, and he could speak to her and understand her, and they would be friends and run through the mountains together as free as the wind, and Motherhen couldn't tell him 'no, because humans are bad…'

The image faded away in his mind, and Warakk sighed sadly, leaning against the stone.

Were humans bad? Was Tifa bad? Were cookies, human things, bad?

He didn't think so, but…

Motherhen couldn't be wrong…right?

It didn't matter, he decided. Bad or not, it didn't matter as long as the humans didn't know he was there. If they didn't know, could they be bad to him?

No, they couldn't.

Warakk peered around his cover, and, finding the path clear, scurried toward the light and the town that was bathed in it.

All he had to do was watch, listen, learn, and stay secret. It was simple, it was easy; no problems, no troubles.

Yet, despite his determination, some small part of him wished it were otherwise.

* * *

Tifa was proud of herself.

She had just read an entire story in her little reading book by herself – her mama had only helped with the really hard words. This was the first time she had read a story out loud without having to stop and let mama finish it.

The sense of accomplishment filled her up from her little toes to the top of her head. It was warm and good, and she wanted to feel it again.

"Can we keep readin', mama?"

She craned her head back to look up at her mother's gentle face. The woman smiled at her and smoothed her bangs back slightly with her hands.

"Later, sweetie," she said, dropping a quick kiss on the little girl's forehead. "You've done a very good job today. Why don't you play for a little while? I know Johnny was looking for you earlier."

"Okay," Tifa said, all smiles and sunshine as she bounced up and scampered away in search of her friends.

The little girl had only run the distance from the backyard to the front when she heard a tremendous barking behind her. Turning around quickly, she spotted the neighbor's dog, a large black thing that scared her by its sheer size and volume of voice, tearing across the ground in her direction. Tifa's eyes grew wide, and her feet rooted themselves to the ground.

Then, all at once, she became aware of a high squealing that was neither her nor the dog, and something small and golden and fluffy was rocketing across the grass and dirt and stone, heading straight at her planted feet as though she was the only safe haven in the area.

The dog snapped at the fluffy thing, missing by a good distance, but it was quite enough for Tifa.

"MAMA!"

She screamed for all she was worth, dashing forward on her short legs even as she did so, hoping to catch the running patch of gold before the dog could, knowing that she wouldn't be able to, that both fluff and dog were too quick for her to lay hands on them, and the dog too big to hold off…

The golden fluffy thing, still squealing in fear, leapt up and, catching hold of her skirt in its tiny talons, began to scramble up her, flapping stubby wings to gain momentum. Instinctively, Tifa scooped her hands down under it, helping it up, and as she did so, she stopped running forward.

All of her attention was focused on what she now realized was a baby bird – though a very large one, probably big enough to fill both her hands up if it would stop wiggling long enough for her to compare the size properly – so when the dog jumped up, planted its paws on her chest, and knocked her over, she didn't know quite what happened until she had hit the ground and the dog was diving for the chick in her hands, which screamed again, scrambling against her arms and dress in search of solid shelter from the sharp white teeth…

"MAAMAAAAAAA!"

_Whoosh—WHACK!_

The dog yelped shrilly and leapt aside, off of Tifa. The little girl uncurled herself slightly, looking up just in time to see her mother swing the broom at the dog again with an uncharacteristically angry shout.

The dog dodged this blow, whimpered, and slunk off with its head down and its tail tucked so far between its legs that the tip of it was brushing the animal's chin.

Tifa's mother dropped the broom and fell to her knees beside the little girl. The woman rolled her over carefully, checking for more severe hurts before she picked Tifa up and cradled the girl on her lap.

"Tifa? Tifa, honey, are you all right? Did he hurt you?"

Tifa suddenly realized that she was crying. There were scratches and bite marks on her arms and the spot on her chest where the dog struck her was sore, and her back hurt, and…

The little chick, who had fallen still in the last few minutes, wiggled between her hands and cheeped softly.

"_Tee-ka_," it said, and the little girl almost imagined the tone was a question. She opened her hands and, biting back her sobs, peered through her teary eyes at the ball of golden fluff she had protected.

Big, bright blue eyes stared up at her from underneath a particularly wild patch of head feathers.

"I-I…" Tifa's breath hitched in another sob, but still she forced her words through. "Ba-bad dog…ch-chuh-chasing…"

"Hush, hush," said Mrs. Lockhart, holding her child close and standing up carefully to avoid jostling either Tifa's hurts or the baby bird from its perch. "It's all right. I'm so sorry, sweetie…"

"Mama? I was…I was sc-scared."

"I know."

"But I couldn't…couldn't let…"

"I know, Tifa. You were a very brave little girl. But," said the mother as she reached the door of their house, "we need to let the chocobo go home."

"But – the dog'll get him!" Tifa's hands closed around the chocobo's little body, leaving only his head poking out into the air. The bird seemed almost in shock, and was staring at Tifa as though it wasn't sure quite what it should do at this point.

"We can't take it inside, sweetie – wild chocobos don't like being inside houses. You don't want to scare it, do you?"

"He'll be brave, like me," Tifa said defiantly, but she ruined the effect by taking an extra-big sniff and raising one hand to wipe at her eyes.

"No, Tifa. Here, put him down here, in the grass. He'll be safe, and we can get you cleaned up, all right?"

The little girl considered it for a moment.

"We can't take him inside?"

"I'm afraid not, sweetie."

"…All right, then."

Tifa's mother lowered the little girl to the ground, and she, in turn, placed the chocobo safely in the grass. Tifa quickly and delicately arranged the grasses to better hide the little bird, and then she was lifted up by her mother again.

"Now you stay there until I come back," she called, and then her mother opened the door and they both vanished from the chocobo's sight.

However, when Tifa was let back out by her mother, fortified by bandages and get-better kisses, the golden chocobo chick was nowhere to be found.

* * *

_I met Tifa, I met Tifa, I met Tifa_ –

The words pounded through his brain with every running step he took. He was tired, sore, out of breath, but the words and the memory they were connected to kept him going.

_I met Tifa, I met Tifa, I met Tifa!_

It wasn't at all the way he had imagined it, as nowhere in his mental wanderings had a hunter turned up to chase them together.

That particular part of the memory made him shudder, falter, and stumble a few times before regaining his pace. He pushed it away by remembering her face, the way she had sheltered him – and someday, somehow, when he was bigger and stronger, he would return the favor, he swore – and a warmth rose in his chest that set his legs pumping faster than before as he hurtled down the Great Path in a streak of golden feathers.

_ImetTifa, ImetTifa, ImetTifa, ImetTifa!_

And Tifa was kind.

She was a human, and she was good.

Humans weren't bad things – they couldn't be, if Tifa was one!

And the Mama – the Mama had chased the hunter away. She was good too, just like Tifa.

Warakk began hopping up the series of large stones and outcroppings that led to the higher path. Halfway up, though, he paused, and looked back down at the Great Path.

Perhaps he shouldn't have left.

Perhaps he could have stayed, and spent some time with what he hoped could be a new friend.

After all, there was plenty of sunshine in the sky.

So why did he run?

Why _did_ he run?

Warakk actually sat down to think.

He was worried about Tifa – she was a human, and so she was bigger than him, but the hunter's attack had still hurt her.

But her motherhen had taken her back into the nest. That meant that she would be all right, and maybe she just needed some time to recover.

Warakk remembered a brother – Kuwark – who had been hurt by a monster. Warakk himself had dragged the green chick back to their nest, and in just a few days, Kuwark was moving again. Not much, but he still recovered in the end.

Tifa would be fine, Warakk was certain. He hadn't run because he was afraid of anything.

No, it was because he was excited!

But now that he actually sat down and thought, however, he realized that he couldn't share this with his motherhen, or his siblings, because they thought humans were bad.

Well, then.

He would just have to tell them otherwise.

And _then_ he could share his excitement, and they could be excited with him!

Warakk stood, ruffled his feathers up once to shift them back into something resembling order, and resumed his journey up the mountain.

_I met Ti-fa! I met Ti-fa! I met Ti-fa! I met Ti-fa!_


	7. In a Name

Lightning split the sky in two, bathing everything between the heavy clouds and the rocky earth for a brief moment in stark white light. Almost before the flash faded from sight, thunder rolled through the air. Droves of rain pounded stone, scree, and loose dirt, darkening everything in sight and rendering already-dangerous mountain paths absolutely fatal. Nothing, be it monster, human, or ordinary beast, could be compelled out on this night. Instead, they took shelter in various hidey-holes, houses, and nests or dens, to sleep all they could through the racket of the storm.

In the little town humans called Nibelheim, Tifa Lockhart had long since abandoned her room and, instead, was snuggled deep under the covers between her parents, taking comfort in their sheltering presence. Similarly, higher in the mountains, a black chocobo hen lay curled up in a large nest under an outcropping of rock, her chicks huddled beneath her for warmth and protection.

And somewhere between them, crammed down a crevice in the hard stone, a golden chocobo chick shivered in the cold and wet and stared blankly out at the pouring rain, blinking every time the lightning illuminated the outside world too brightly for his eyes.

If not for the faint trembling and the occasional blink, Warakk would have been perfectly motionless, neither swaying nor fidgeting as he watched the storm with blank eyes. All of his concentration was focused inward, remembering and replaying the events of earlier that day.

It had started out so normally. Down the mountain, hide behind the Tifa nest, watch and listen and learn all he could from their mysterious lessons of words and big squared objects they called '_books._' Of course, he had become so engrossed there that he hadn't noticed a big black hunter sneaking up behind him, and by the time he did, it was almost too late to run.

Then, Tifa.

Tifa and her motherhen – her '_Mama'_ - saved him, driving the hunter away.

He met Tifa.

Overjoyed – no, positively ecstatic – he had run home to tell Motherhen and his siblings of this. Humans weren't bad. They couldn't be.

But Motherhen had taken one whiff of him and the next thing Warakk knew, he was being chased away by puffed-up black feathers and angry squawks and a hard, sharp beak. He had returned again and again, but each time, she drove him off without a word of explanation, without even a goodbye or a drop of sorrow for what she was doing.

Night had fallen, and clouds obscured the sky, by the time Warakk realized he could never return to the nest, and he gave up.

The little chocobo had wandered aimlessly, knowing he couldn't go back home, not certain whether he could – or should – return to Tifa. Tifa was good – humans were good – but on some level, they still scared Warakk. They were so different – would they let him stay?

His own motherhen didn't.

At that time, Warakk took little notice of the sparse, fat drops of water falling about him. That, however, soon changed, and before long, he found himself scurrying in a frantic search for shelter from the storm. Warakk eventually found a crevice that he could squeeze into. Dripping wet, he forced his way into the crack in the stone, finding a slightly roomier area just behind the entrance itself, and there he settled down to think and watch the water fall.

And the main subject of his thoughts was Tifa.

What was that last thing she said to him, before her motherhen carried her into their nest?

"_Now you stay there until I come back_."

Most of it was meaningless, but Warakk thought he recognized one word at least. Maybe two.

In all the time he had watched Tifa on warm, sunny days, he noticed that her Mama would sometimes go back into the nest, leaving the little girl alone for a short while. And just about every time, before she entered the house, the Mama would say something.

"_Stay here. I'll be right back._"

Stay.

Back.

Did that mean…that Tifa told him she would return later? That she, like her Mama, was just going into the nest for a short time, and then she would come and find him again?

And she wouldn't say that she would return to him if she didn't want to.

Warakk closed his eyes, swayed a little…

And knocked his head against the hard stone at his side.

Twice.

_Stupid, stupid_, he told himself, stopping to let his abused skull recover. He didn't open his eyes.

If he'd listened to her words, if he'd _remembered_ what he thought they meant, he might have stayed a while!

But he left.

Warakk leaned his head carefully against the stone, slumping down as though he'd just lost half his bones.

He left.

Would she even let him come back?

Motherhen didn't.

And so his thoughts began to chase their own tailfeathers again and again. Tifa was good, she was kind, and Warakk thought that she wanted to find him again. Warakk had left, like he didn't care, like any kind of friendship wasn't important. But Tifa had wanted him to be there, to stay – but he had left – but she had said – but he had gone…

And on, and on, and on, until the little chocobo was exhausted, as though he had just spent hours running up and down the path between nest and human-place. And as those thoughts tripped each other up in never-ending circles, Warakk came to realize something: no matter how much he thought, he couldn't change what he had done, and he couldn't know what Tifa would or would not do because he didn't really know her.

And he couldn't know her unless he actually approached her again.

That particular realization made Warakk simultaneously swell with hope and shrink in fear. He fretted over it for a moment more before nervously laying his head down behind his wing in a futile attempt to sleep.

Tomorrow, he would go back to the Tifa nest and he would wait and watch, as usual.

And maybe, just maybe…

Maybe, he would approach her, this time of his own choice.

Maybe.

Definitely maybe.

* * *

"Tifa? Are you listening?"

The dark-haired girl blinked suddenly and turned her attention from the tall grass bordering the yard back to her mother.

"Sorry, Mama," she said, even as her brown eyes drifted back to the grass.

Was that motion she saw - ?

Mrs. Lockhart sighed and closed the math book around one finger. There was no getting anything done as long as Tifa's mind was on that little bird. The girl had done almost nothing but fret about the poor thing, wondering where it was, if it was all right through the storm, if it was safe and warm, if the dog next door had finally gotten to it…

The woman had done her best to comfort her daughter – the bird likely had a mother and was tucked away safely in a nest somewhere, sound and snug, she said – but even she had wondered. Wild chocobos were sometimes sighted in the mountains, but not often, and never so young or so close to humans. It could be that the bird had lost its mother – and if it hadn't, Tifa had held it in her hands the other day. Mrs. Lockhart knew enough about birds and most other wild animals that the smell of a predator on one, such as a human, was usually enough to have it driven out of the nest, den, or warren.

Still, there was nothing they could do.

She sighed and laid a gentle hand on Tifa's shoulder.

"Come on, sweetie. Let's go inside – you can help me make some stew for supper, all right?"

To her surprise, Tifa shook her head vehemently. The little girl usually loved spending time in the kitchen with her mother – it was their girl-time, time to talk and laugh and remember and usually wind up baking some small treat or another.

"No," Tifa said, as though she wasn't yet certain she had made her reply clear.

"Tifa?"

She remained silent, her eyes fixed on the grasses. Waiting.

"Tifa, honey, it's not coming back."

"He."

Mrs. Lockhart paused, not certain if it was a good thing or not that Tifa was already attached enough to assign the creature a gender. It spoke volumes of her little girl's capacity to love, but if the chocobo _didn't_ come back, for whatever reason, it would only hurt her.

"And yes, he is. I told him that I'd be right back."

"Sweetie…Tifa, chocobos don't speak human."

"He said my name."

Such childish conviction and certainty rang in Tifa's voice that her mother had to smile at her. Humming in amusement, she stroked Tifa's hair with her free hand.

"I'm sure it – _he_ – did."

"And he's coming back."

"Tifa…"

But this time, the name was more resigned-exasperated than annoyed or doubting. Tifa flashed a quick grin upwards, then leaned forwards with her elbows on her knees.

"Just watch," she said.

Mrs. Lockhart slid a sheet of paper into the math book, set it aside, and joined Tifa in watching.

A minute passed, and then, perhaps another.

Then, slowly, to the child's delight and the mother's near-disbelief, the grasses parted, and a little golden beak and head emerged to regard the two with bright blue eyes. The poor thing trembled, and it released a quiet _wark_, rising like a question in tone.

"Hello," Tifa whispered, and she laid a small hand on the ground before her, flat and palm-up.

The young chocobo cocked its head a little, seemed to steel itself, and stepped slowly out of the tall cover of the grass.

"_Tee-ka?_" it squeaked, and Mrs. Lockhart could almost imagine how Tifa had heard her own name in the chirps.

"Hi, boy," the girl said, and she wiggled the fingers on the ground. "Here, birdie."

The chocobo continued stepping forward, slowly, carefully, until it was directly before Tifa's fingers. It looked down at them, up at the girl's face, and for a moment, its gaze flicked at the woman behind the girl.

Then, very deliberately, it lifted one clawed foot and placed it on the tip of Tifa's fingers.

"_H-aa-roh_?" it said.

Tifa grinned widely.

"Mama, can we give him somethin' to eat?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes, I – I suppose so. Wait here, I'll see if there's any bread inside…"

"_K-k-koo-kee? Teeka, kookee…kah-rees?_"

Tifa looked back at her mother, already opening the door to enter their house.

"Mama? Do we have any cookies?"

"Yes. Would you like one?"

"It's not for me – it's for the birdie."

Mrs. Lockhart paused in the doorway, confused.

"I – bread would be much better for it – him. All the sugar…I don't know."

"Can we try? He really wants a cookie."

"_Kahrees kookee."_

"See? He said, 'please,' and everything."

"I'm still going to say no," the woman said, and tried a different tactic. "He can't have desert before dinner, you know, and to a bird that size, a whole cookie is a very big treat."

"Ooooh, okay," Tifa said, and the last thing Mrs. Lockhart heard before she shut the door was her little girl explaining to the bird, with great patience, that he couldn't have a cookie now, but next time, she'd share one with him.

Just slightly bemused, Mrs. Lockhart shook her head and set to searching out a loaf of bread.

* * *

"I can't just call you 'birdie.'"

Warakk looked up at Tifa from his perch on the ground in front of her, still a little dazed by this turn of events…or perhaps he was just too full of that odd spongey brown substance they had given him to eat. It was actually quite tasty, Warakk thought, even though Tifa had made it pretty clear that it wasn't a cookie, and that he could try that later.

At least, that's what he thought she had meant. Human speech still mostly eluded him, even though Tifa made sure to speak slowly and used her hands a lot.

"You need a name. Do you have a name?"

Warakk thought about it. _Name_…he didn't know _name_. So he caught Tifa's eye, cocked his head in an exaggerated manner, and opened his beak.

"_Wat_?"

That word, he had learned very quickly – just in the last hour, in fact. It seemed to mean something like, "please explain" or "I don't get it."

Tifa thought for a moment, twisting her hair in one hand. At length, she pointed at herself.

"My…_name_…is…Tifa."

She pointed at Warakk.

"Your…name…is…hmm?"

_Name_…what you were called?

Motherhen called him Warakk…but motherhen kicked him out. Now, she didn't call him anything. Was he still Warakk?

He fluffed his feathers up and scratched the dirt twice to signal uncertainty. Maybe he could still be a Warakk…

But Tifa had a pretty name. It was a human name, and he couldn't say it properly, but he liked hearing her say it, or her Mama say it, and he wondered what a human name might be for himself.

He couldn't even begin to imagine.

"I can give you one!"

Tifa was speaking quickly again, but she was obviously excited about whatever it was, so he decided to just go along. It probably still had something to do with names…

"Wait here."

Ah. He knew that one. Warakk made sure Tifa saw him settle himself very firmly in the dirt before she ran off.

He wasn't going anywhere this time.

Tifa returned very soon, having disappeared into her human nest for only a minute or two. She held a rigid square thing in her hands, something Warakk thought was what the humans called a _book_, and when she flopped herself down on her stomach beside the chocobo, he saw that he was right.

Tifa opened the book to the first section and looked at the picture there. Warakk stood and trotted over to peer over her arm. The thing seemed to be a red blob, with a bit of green shaped vaguely like a leaf coming out the top, with black block-like marks underneath.

"Apple," Tifa said vaguely. "Ah-ple…No, I don't think so…"

She turned a part of the book over, and there was another picture. This one looked to Warakk like another blob, only this time patterned yellow and blue and in a perfect circle rather than lumpy-shaped.

"Ball," Tifa recited. "That sounds stupid."

Warakk didn't know this _stupid_, but he didn't think it was a good thing, if Tifa's tone was anything to go by. She turned another page.

"Cloud," she said, and this time she paused.

Warakk looked at the picture – it was blue, with a puffy white thing on it. Uncertainly, he flicked his eyes up to Tifa, and noticed she was looking at the sky. Following her gaze, he saw blue...

With puffy white things floating in it.

"Cuh-lou-dh…" Tifa said, very slowly. Warakk found himself liking the sound.

"_Koo-rau-duh_."

"You like it? I do."

"_Koo-rau-doh_."

If he rolled his tongue up just a little in his mouth, just enough to be uncomfortable if he held it longer than a split second, he could almost, _almost_, make that beautiful '_l_' sound Tifa used.

"_Ku-rau-do_…_Kuraudo…_"

Tifa laughed, and Warakk joined in, human giggles mingling with the cheeping of a young chocobo.

"Cloud, then!"

Tifa closed the book and got up, brushing off her dress. She offered a hand, and Warakk – Cloud – jumped up onto it, flapping his short wings for balance. Together, the two – recently met, but already fast friends – entered the human nest, and they both called it home.


	8. A Child's World

Sunlight filtering in through the window woke Cloud. It was weak sunlight, being in the middle of the Nibelheim winter, but it was enough to illuminate the inside of the room and rouse the sleepy little chocobo, who yawned, stretched, and shimmied his way out of the thick blanket Tifa had snuck him when the weather first started to turn toward the cold.

That was two years ago – two full cycles of seasons, and then some.

Cloud clambered out of his self-built nest, a pile of dry straw and warm blanket that hardly deserved the title, and ruffled his feathers up. He looked at his window; there was a thin, white coating of frost on it. Another cold day, as was usual this time of year.

The frost was just about the only way Cloud could realize the temperature of the outdoors; the inside of his living space was kept relatively warm by the brick fireplace set in the house wall it was built against.

The chocobo trotted over to the door set opposite the bricks, a wooden half-and-half thing like two smaller doors stacked on top of each other. With a few jumps and some rapid wing-flapping to help himself along, Cloud soon reached a wooden ledge made by a beam set across the wall there. Reaching into a corner with his beak, he found a thin, but strong metal wire as long as he was tall and pulled it out.

Then, with the smooth motions of long and constant experience, Cloud slipped the wire through the crack at the side of the top half-door and ran it upwards until it caught on something outside.

The chocobo gave the wire a quick shake, and was rewarded by the sound of a small metal object sliding off of the wire to clatter against the outside of the door.

Cloud replaced the wire, jumped over to the ledge that ran across the top of the bottom door-half, and shoved.

The top door-half swung open just enough for a chocobo of Cloud's size to slip through. He did so without a second thought, flapping to slow his fall, which was further broken by a snowdrift.

"AACK!"

_COLD!_

Cloud hopped, jumped, and scurried free to the clearer ground in the middle of the yard, where snow couldn't pile so easily and where it was firm enough to hold his weight with just a little crackling and sinking. Once there, he stopped to shake his feathers clear of the freezing white stuff.

No matter how many times he did that, he still hadn't gotten used to the initial shock of the temperature.

His composure (and most of his comfort) regained, Cloud strode across the yard to the back door of the bigger house, again, with the ease and confidence of long experience. Upon reaching the door itself, he balanced himself expertly on one foot, formed the other into a fist, and knocked at the door three times, just like Tifa had showed him so long ago.

Tifa's Mama must have been listening for it, because the door opened just a few seconds later, and she was smiling down at him.

"Morning, Cloud," she said, perhaps a little jokingly, but that was her usual manner of addressing him. Cloud still didn't quite know why…Tifa took him seriously.

And speaking of Tifa…

"Cloud!"

The seven-year-old girl ran into the entranceway, dropped to her knees, and quickly grabbed Cloud in her customary 'good-morning' hug. He bore it stoically and was soon released in order to trot alongside Tifa into the kitchen. There, the girl headed for the table, while he made his way to a spot in the corner.

He didn't get too far.

Tifa scooped him up – she needed both hands now, and even then she couldn't hold all of him – and he squawked in protest.

"Tifa," Mrs. Lockhart said in warning. "You know he's not allowed…"

"It's not fair, making Cloud eat on the floor!"

"He's used to it, dear," the woman replied.

Cloud closed his eyes so he could roll them without startling anyone. The last time he had done so openly, Mrs. Lockhart had dropped an entire bowl of cooked greens and made a huge mess. He tried to help clean it up, but they didn't taste very good when they were all soggy and limp, and she seemed to be doing a much better job of it anyhow.

Tifa set Cloud firmly on a chair, in spite of the fact that his head was a good few inches below the level of the table even so. He didn't bother opening his eyes; he could hear the heavy footsteps approaching the room, and it was only a matter of time until…

"Tifa Lockhart, we've discussed this! Once a month, in fact, for the last year!"

"But, Da-ddy!"

"No." Cloud imagined a huge finger pointing imperiously at the ground. "Floor!"

"It's not fair!"

"The table is for people."

"Cloud's a person, too!"

But Tifa had circled her arms around Cloud and was already lifting him from the chair – they both knew the argument was lost long, long before it had begun.

"No."

The first time, the tone of that word was direct, final, and strong. Now, it wavered in weariness and exasperation. Cloud heard it, and he thought Tifa heard it, too. It was probably why she continued to fight for Cloud's table-sitting rights every morning at breakfast time, he thought. It truly didn't matter to him, but if it was so important to Tifa, he wouldn't stop her.

Still, as she set him on the floor again and he opened his eyes, he took the chance to whisper, "_S'okay, Tika_," and he saw an answering smile in reply, along with a stubborn glint in her eye.

She obviously wasn't going to stop fighting this battle. Not yet.

Tifa joined her father at the table, and Cloud stepped over to the dish set on the floor just for him, finding it already filled with that curious sort of grainy substance that the adults simply called 'chocobo meal,' as though it had no real name of its own. Still, Cloud ate it happily enough – it was filling, and what it lacked in taste he had little doubt would be made up for later on, when Tifa would sneak him a piece of cookie, or cake, or – he sniffed the air – perhaps one of the pancakes Mrs. Lockhart was now setting on their high table.

Tifa caught his eye and flashed a quick grin and a wink, tapping her fork on her plate casually.

Oh, yes – pancakes later!

Cloud clacked his beak twice to let her know he got her message, and both of them turned back to their own meals, the chocobo listening to the human conversation in case any new words or meanings snuck into it.

Two years, and he was still learning.

"Any plans today?" Mrs. Lockhart was asking her husband and daughter. It was a special sort of day in the human week, Cloud knew – one where Tifa didn't do lessons but instead took him out to play with the other children all day. There was a name for the day, he knew, but he couldn't remember it.

"Not really," Tifa said. "Maybe Cloud 'n' I'll build a snowman or have a snowball fight with my friends or somethin'."

"Make sure you stay off the mountain," Mr. Lockhart said gruffly, just as he always did when Tifa announced plans to play outside or go on a walk with Cloud or meet up with her human friends.

"What about you, dear?"

"Harry and I're gonna start fixing up the house next door."

"The Strife house?" Mrs. Lockhart sounded surprised. "It's been abandoned for eight years. Why now?"

Cloud didn't know much about the nest – house – next to Tifa's except that no one lived in it. He didn't pay much attention, really, but he thought he'd heard something about an accident. The Nibelheim children weren't allowed to play in or around it, just in case something bad happened, just like they couldn't play in the old Shinra mansion or the mountain paths.

"Mrs. Perry wants us to. Seems she's got a granddaughter and her family comin' back here from – I think Junon – anyhow, they're coming here t' take care of her now, an' they'll need a place of their own to stay. The Strife house is bigger than the Perry house, so it's easier to fix up that than add onto the other."

"Hm. Well, that'll be nice for Mabel. I was going to bring her some of the soup I made yesterday – perhaps I'll make my visit a big longer. Tifa, would you mind helping me carry a few things over?"

"Okay," Tifa said, swinging her legs as she scraped her plate clean. Cloud headed over to the kitchen doorway and settled down to wait – it wouldn't be much longer before they went out.

Sure enough, a little less than ten minutes later, Cloud, Tifa, and Mrs. Lockhart were trooping out the front door and into the snow outside. Both humans were bundled up in coats, scarves, hats, and gloves, and Tifa had wound a thick, if lumpy, blue scarf she had made herself around Cloud's neck. Mrs. Lockhart carried a large silver pot in both arms – the soup they were delivering – while Tifa held her mother's sewing basket. Cloud had been entrusted (by Tifa) with a bag which, he knew, held nice, soft biscuits that humans seemed to enjoy with their soups. He walked with his eyes fixed ahead of him, trying very hard to ignore the tantalizing smells rising into his beak.

Tifa had already slipped him the small pancake she had smuggled off of the breakfast table, so he was really quite full, but oh, that smell…

Cloud focused so hard on his sense of sight that his eyes came as close to crossing as they could on a chocobo.

"Tifa! Hey, Tifa!"

Both Tifa and Cloud glanced about to see the voice's owner waving and running toward them.

"Hello, Johnny," Tifa said as the boy caught up to walk alongside them. Cloud ignored him. A year ago, the boy, along with a group of others, had caught him alone and tied a rattling string of tin cans to his foot. The cans had jerked, clanked, and generally half-deafened him as he tripped all the way home to Tifa. She had untied the string and told the boys off while Cloud silently fumed at them from a spot just behind the girl.

They tried the same trick on him a week later.

One boy couldn't sit down without wincing for several days following that incident, and the entire group had avoided him for quite a bit longer. Now, they tended to pretend the chocobo wasn't there unless Tifa made them act otherwise, and Cloud was quite happy to return the favor, again, unless Tifa insisted on him joining their games.

"We're having a snowball fight. Want to join? You'd be on my team, against Wel and Dan."

"Mama?"

"She'll be just a few minutes," Mrs. Lockhart said, directly addressing Johnny with a small smile. "We're going to visit Mrs. Perry, but it won't be too long."

"Great! Thanks, Mrs. Lockhart. See ya, Tifa!"

"Bye!" Tifa called as Johnny ran off again. Once the boy was gone, she addressed Cloud.

"So, do you want to join in this time?"

Cloud, one eye on Mrs. Lockhart, shook his head quickly.

"Yeah, I guess it'd be kinda hard to throw snowballs with wings, huh?"

He made a quiet scoffing sound in the back of his throat by way of reply.

Cloud tried the 'snowball' thing once, but he'd never managed to do much more than present himself as a target to the other team and learn yet another reason to envy humans their hands.

By this time, they had reached the front door of Mrs. Perry's house, a little one-story thing with faded green paint on the outside and chipped white shutters. Mrs. Lockhart knocked on the door while Tifa and Cloud stomped snow from their boots and feet.

"Come in," called a wavering old voice from inside. "It's open."

Mrs. Lockhart turned the handle and pushed open the door with a worn, soft creak of the hinges. She waited until both Tifa and Cloud were well inside before closing the door.

The inside of the house was dim and smelled musty to Cloud, thick with old human scents and dust. The floorboards and wall paneling was dark with age, and black-and-white pictures in heavy wooden frames lined the hallway.

"Good morning, Mable," Mrs. Lockhart said, leading her daughter and Cloud into a sizable room just off the front hallway. "How have you been?"

Mable Perry sat up in a wing-backed, floral-patterned armchair, swathed in blankets and pillows. She was a tiny old woman, dwarfed further by the cluttered sitting room and the size of her chair, but she held her head high and smiled so that half the wrinkles in her face deepened and the other half were stretched away. Her white, white hair was curly and cut short about her head, and she wore a pair of huge, thick glasses that magnified her eyes so that one could clearly see each different shade of blue in them.

Cloud had always thought she looked fascinating.

"Oh, I'm fine, dear, just fine! A bit stiff in the cold, but that's winter for me. Deary me, what is that you've brought?"

Mrs. Lockhart lifted the silvery stewpot slightly in her arms.

"Just a bit of soup I made. I wondered if you might like some, as I cooked quite a bit more than I had been planning…"

"Cooked quite a bit more, oh, posh! I know what you're up to, but I do appreciate the thought, dear. Just set it on the kitchen counter, and I'll see to having some tonight."

Mrs. Lockhart shifted the pot to one hip, took the biscuits from Cloud, and disappeared into the kitchen. At that moment, Mrs. Perry fixed her beaming smile on both Tifa and Cloud.

"What? Is this little Tifa Lockhart and Cloud, her talking chocobo? Oh, do come closer, let me take a good look at you – my goodness, but you two have grown!"

Cloud drew himself up slightly to seem even taller, proud of his greatly increased height. He had finally hit a major growth spurt and, during the last two years, had gone from a tiny chick Tifa could carry in her hands to a bird that stood at about halfway up her thigh. He was still rather small, of course, but this was better than it had been before, at least.

"Good morning, ma'am," Tifa said with a smile.

Cloud furiously worked his beak into position.

"Kgkoot nornin, nan."

"Ah, an '_n_' sound, now? How very impressive!"

"Cloud figured that one out a few days ago. He still can't do '_m_'s, though. I think it's 'cause he doesn't have lips."

"He's a very clever chocobo, all the same."

Mrs. Perry reached out and patted Cloud atop his head, playfully mussing up the oddly-formed crest feathers there. The things tended to grow very strangely on Cloud. Rather than sprouting a single uniform row of longer feathers at the back of his head, Cloud ended up with a bunch of spiky, variously-sized feathers all over the place. Most of them pointed to his right, and a few at the front somehow came out all downy and floppy so that they seemed to be growing toward the ground.

The old woman seemed to derive great amusement from them, but somehow, Cloud didn't mind so much…perhaps because she treated them as amusing in a special kind of way, instead of amusing in a stupid manner.

That, and she always knew just where to scritch around them.

Which she started to do now, and soon Cloud was a floppy pile of feathers in her blanketed lap, eyes half-lidded as he fuzzily listened to the old woman and Tifa talk for a while, and Mrs. Lockhart return from the kitchen, and Tifa leave to play with her friends, and Mrs. Lockhart start to talk to Mrs. Perry about the town, and the past, and more, and time just drifted on and on…

Cloud must have fallen asleep briefly, because when he next became aware of his surroundings, Mrs. Perry had stopped scratching his head and, instead, was knitting something big and soft and draped half over him.

She and Mrs. Lockhart were still talking.

"I did tell Samantha that she didn't have to come up here just to take care of me – I do get on quite well enough by myself, and I have you and the rest of Nibelheim helping me along – but she started insisting that she missed the mountains and, as she and Nathan are planning on children, she wants to raise them here. I don't believe her for a moment, of course – her young man simply wouldn't have a living in this area, and I know for a fact she likes Junon well enough as a place."

"What does Nathan do?"

"Oh, he's actually a chocobo handler…which is why I say he wouldn't have much opportunity out here. Cloud's the only chocobo in this town, and I'd say Tifa handles him plenty well."

"Yes," Mrs. Lockhart laughed. "It's amazing, how she's trained him…though I do worry a bit, because it's been two years, and she still seriously pretends as though they talk to each other. Isn't that a bit long, even for someone her age?"

"Now don't you go doubting Tifa, or Cloud for that matter. It doesn't have to be pretend, you know."

"Mmm. I…suppose."

Cloud could hear the doubt in her voice, although she didn't argue openly. Mrs. Perry also heard it, and she was having none of that.

"Did you know they say a child's eyes see colors brighter, sharper, than adults can?"

"No, I hadn't heard that. Where did…?"

"My daughter-in-law, Alice, sends me little tidbits of news and discoveries in her letters sometimes," Mrs. Perry replied, waving off the question with one hand. Cloud let his head roll slightly across the blanket to hear more – this sounded interesting.

"The point is," Mrs. Perry continued, "if children can see better with their _eyes_, why can't they also see better with their _hearts_ and _minds_? I do believe Tifa's spotted something special in this chocobo…and don't try to tell me you haven't seen the same thing time to time. Your eyes are still young, my dear."

"But it's…_ridiculous_."

Ooh, new word. Cloud wondered what it meant – it could be just about anything in that sentence.

"Chocobos…they can't _really_ talk. Can they?"

"No," said Mrs. Perry, and Cloud scrunched his brow in confusion.

"But _this _one can."

One little old hand dropped from the knitting to pat him lightly on the back, and his confusion melted away.

"Just think on it…actually, don't think. Feel, and give him a chance. Don't close your mind to the world's wonders just because society calls you an adult now."

The room went quiet, except for the steady clackity-clackity-clack of Mrs. Perry's knitting needles. Without anything else to focus on, Cloud slowly became aware that his left wing, pinned beneath him, was starting to go all tingly and dead-feeling. He shifted it out from under himself, and grunted softly when the rush of blood seemed to set off sparks in his muscles. The old woman looked down suddenly, and their eyes met. She smiled slightly and patted his back again.

"Are you awake now?"

Cloud blinked at her instead of nodding, feeling very aware of Mrs. Lockhart's eyes on him.

"Hmm. Well, then, why don't you run along outside and find Tifa? It's been half an hour at least, and snowball fights don't typically last too long in my experience."

Cloud didn't try to reply; instead, he merely shuffled himself across the thick blankets and dropped to the floor. Stretching his wing out and feeling the tingles ease as he did so, he started for the door.

"Oh, Rita, dear, would you let him out? I don't believe the latch is quite low enough for him to reach."

Mrs. Lockhart put her sewing aside to stand and follow Cloud out.

The chocobo had just reached the entrance between sitting room and hallway when Mrs. Perry called out one last time.

"Cloud? Aren't you going to say goodbye?"

Again, Cloud felt Mrs. Lockhart watching. It made him feel oddly shy and very nervous, knowing that she was watching for strangeness, for anything unusual or unique about him.

So he jerked his head in an odd little nod to Mrs. Perry, _wark_ed softly to her, turned around, and left.

And as Mrs. Lockhart closed the door behind him, he found himself wishing he had been brave enough to actually speak as freely as he dreamed.

But it was too late now.

So, dragging his feet a little through the snow, he set off in search of Tifa, found her back at home, and spent the remainder of the day helping her build a 'snow chocobo' and replaying the earlier events over and over again, imagining every way they might have gone right, and every way wrong.

That night, when Tifa came out to see Cloud tucked snugly into his nest and read with him another chapter of the book they shared, her mother came with her. Throughout their nightly ritual, Mrs. Lockhart hovered near the closed door and watched with a strange look on her face until Cloud and Tifa finished their reading and the humans left Cloud's living area for their own house.

She did this again and again for several nights following, but in the end, nothing really changed.

And nothing would - for a while, at least.


	9. Some Things Can't Be Fixed

The morning was unremarkable, Cloud thought at first. A little cool and a little damp for springtime, but the sun was out and the new grass was green and the mountains rose against the sky in the same majestic way they always did. He unlatched his door as usual, though it had gotten rather hard for him to balance on the ledge – it seemed to have grown narrower in the last year, though it was also closer to the ground now – and trotted to the door of the main house while completely ignoring the frantic barks of the neighbor's dog, which was safely tied to a tree far from Cloud's path. He knocked on the door, Tifa opened it, and he followed her inside to the kitchen.

There, however, he stopped short, because inside he saw something he had only rarely seen before.

Mr. Lockhart stood where Tifa's mother usually did, cooking breakfast.

Cloud bent his neck back and looked up at Tifa, letting all his questions into his eyes. She understood immediately and bent down to whisper to him.

"Mama's not feeling good," she said softly.

"Oh," he replied, his voice even quieter than Tifa's. He had a feeling that if Mrs. Lockhart was oddly afraid of his ability to speak, Mr. Lockhart would be somehow terrified. And terror, for Mr. Lockhart, did not make him shriek and drop a bowl of food and do nothing else. His terror would be more like Cloud's old motherhen's terror of humans. Cloud had no intention of being driven from _this_ nest.

"_Not_ at the table, Tifa," Mr. Lockhart suddenly said, never turning around.

Tifa looked up at him indignantly.

"I wasn't!"

"Hmm. Still…"

Tifa still hadn't given up on the battle for Cloud's table-sitting rights, but as stubborn and persistent as the girl was, it was obvious where she had gotten those traits. Mr. Lockhart was not one to back down from a fight either, and he had the advantage of authority. In all honesty, Cloud considered himself lucky that the man allowed him inside the house at all.

The soft rush of grain filling his bowl caught his attention, and he finally moved from the kitchen doorway. Tifa sat down at the tall table, and Mr. Lockhart started scooping their breakfast onto plates. Cloud tested the air quickly and his eyes frowned in disappointment.

No pancakes, darnit. Not even muffins.

He heard Tifa's fork scrape rapidly over her plate, back and forth three times. No breakfast treat today, that meant.

Cloud shrugged to himself, knowing that Tifa would see the small motion and understand it, and bent to take a mouthful of his own meal. It would fill him up, at least.

"Now, Tifa," Mr. Lockhart was saying, "I'll need you to stay quiet today. You can read a book, or play with your friends outside, but no noisemaking in the house. Your mother needs to rest."

"Okay. Daddy? Can I pick mama some flowers? She gives me my favorite flowers when I'm sick, to cheer me up. I know which ones she likes."

"Later. Wait until she wakes up."

"Oh. Okay."

"Mm. And no piano practice today."

"But I always practice on Thursdays!"

"Your mother…"

"I know. I'm sorry."

Cloud finished up his meal and turned around to see Mr. Lockhart laying a large, tentative hand on Tifa's shoulder.

"It's just for today," he said gruffly. "It's nothing…just a little cold, a bug. She'll be fine in no time. Up on her feet by tomorrow…you can practice then."

The next day, Rita Lockhart was, indeed, up on her feet and cooking breakfast. Her eyes were tired, though, and her movements sluggish, and she fell asleep on the couch just halfway through Tifa's lesson. Mr. Lockhart sent Tifa and Cloud outside to play after that. Cloud had looked back as the door shut to see Mr. Lockhart carrying his sleeping wife back upstairs.

For many days following, Cloud didn't see her at all.

Tifa went out every day and picked the little yellow flowers her mother loved, tying them together in a bunch with string and putting them on the tray Mr. Lockhart carried upstairs every evening. She helped her father make a big pot of soup one afternoon, and she brewed tea for her mother often. She went through the motions of math, and reading, and writing, but Cloud could tell her heart wasn't in it. Once, instead of playing with Johnny and the other children, Tifa and Cloud had gone to visit Mabel Perry, who taught Tifa another stitch in knitting and held the young girl when she confessed, in a wavering voice that broke Cloud's heart, how afraid she was, how her mother had never been so ill before, how her father never let her into their room in case it was contagious…

All Cloud could do then was clamber up onto Mrs. Perry's lap and let Tifa hug him as she shook and cried.

He hated being so helpless, so unable to do anything…

The doctor came to the house one day and disappeared upstairs for a long time. Tifa and Cloud waited on the couch with a book neither one was even pretending to read, and both watched him come back down, say something very, very quietly to Mr. Lockhart at the door, and leave. They watched Mr. Lockhart close the door softly, clutching a brown paper packet to his chest with one hand, linger a moment, and then turn around and climb the stairs again with the packet still held close.

"It'll make mama better," Tifa whispered to Cloud. They never spoke aloud in the house anymore – it was always in whispers. "It's medicine. Medicine always makes things better."

"Yeah. Arways."

Always. The king would be ill, the queen dying, the princess trapped in an endless sleep, the young prince forced to turn into a monster every night, and a hero would always come along, journey to distant lands, fight the evil sorcerer, and return with a cure. Cloud and Tifa had read it a thousand times, and they knew, with absolute certainty, that medicine always worked.

So what if the hero was an aging man with a black hat and bag, a neighbor who, when a doctor was unnecessary, ran the town's only inn? So what if the only evil he ever had to fight off was a small monster he might have, maybe, encountered while gathering plants and supplies in the mountain? It was evil, and he fought it, and he had journeyed to the edge of the world that Tifa and Cloud knew, and so it _had _to work.

More days passed, one by one and unbearably slowly. The doctor visited again, and a third time, and Cloud hated that black hat he wore and the bag he carried because they made Tifa go all quiet and still when she saw them through the window, but he never had a moment alone with the things to shred them and destroy the feelings they caused.

They visited Mrs. Perry again, but this time she didn't have any words of comfort, no hearty reassurances that "Rita – your mother – is young…she'll bounce right back, dear, just give her some time and rest." This time, she simply stroked Tifa's hair and murmured something about never expecting this. And this time, when Tifa realized it was time to go home, Mrs. Perry called Cloud back.

"I'll just keep him a moment, dear," she said to Tifa. "Run along now – he'll be right out."

The little girl wiped at her eyes, nodded, and left. Mrs. Perry waited until the front door closed, and then checked through the window to see that Tifa was sitting on the front stoop, waiting.

Then the elderly woman turned and regarded Cloud with eyes magnified by her huge glasses, and he shuffled a little, suddenly uncomfortable. It was as if the temperature had dropped somewhere in the pit of his belly. He fluffed his feathers unconsciously, trying to ward off the chill.

"It's all right, Cloud, it's…"

She stopped, and sighed, hobbling over to her armchair with the aid of her cane.

"No, it's not all right. It's very difficult to say, but say it I must. Cloud, this is something Tifa does not need to be told. Do you understand me?"

Cloud was even more uncomfortable.

"A…sec-ret? 'Rom _Tika_?"

"I know, I know darling…but telling her this, true or not, will only hurt her right now. I can only hope I'm wrong, but if not…someone close to her needs to know, closer than myself. If…well, Cloud, I suppose I should start at the start."

He made a little sound in his throat, not sure if he should agree or disagree or if there was even a question of agreement in there at all.

"Cloud, I'm not sure how to say this softly, but…I'm becoming afraid. Rita Lockhart…Tifa's mother…she may not survive."

Not survive…but didn't that mean…?

But what about…?

"Nedicine!" Cloud blurted. "The _nedicine_."

"Medicine? It can't cure all hurts in the world, Cloud. Sometimes it's not enough."

His head spun. Not enough? What more _was_ there? It worked in the stories. Were these false?

Cloud sat down hard on the floor, hardly aware of his legs giving out from under him.

"Cloud. Cloud, listen to me!"

He tried hard, and he finally focused on Mrs. Perry again.

"I can't tell Tifa – _you _can't tell Tifa – because there's still a _chance_. Rita could very well pull through this, and telling Tifa she _won't_ will only upset the poor child needlessly. Do you understand me?"

Cloud nodded slowly, stopped, and shook his head.

"Why…te'…_nee_?

"Because if things don't improve…get better…Tifa will need someone who understands. Rita is that child's support, and if she vanishes, someone will have to be a safe and steady rock for Tifa. Her father…means well, but he's just not one for the task."

The chocobo gave it a good long thought, arranging the pieces of Mrs. Perry's words so they made sense. The entire prospect frightened him – he couldn't wrap his mind around the possibility of Mrs. Lockhart just…vanishing…but he finally understood what Mrs. Perry wanted him to do, and it was something he had sworn to do three years ago.

He would protect Tifa. If things turned bad, he would do all he could to make sure she was all right.

"Yes…okay…I un'erstan'. I…I helk Tika. Yes?"

"Yes. You help her."

Mrs. Perry smiled sadly at Cloud, then stood up and shuffled slowly toward the door, leaning on her cane. Cloud matched her pace carefully, and she opened the door to let him out.

Tifa started up from the stoop, her mouth open as though to ask a question, but Mrs. Perry spoke before she could.

"Oh, Tifa, before I forget, I was going to do a little baking tomorrow. Do you two both have a favorite sort of cookie?"

" Cloud likes butter cookies," Tifa replied, her brow furrowed in puzzlement. "Snickerdoodles're good too. Don't you remember?"

"Oh, yes, must be my old age. Either one, hmm? Perhaps I'll surprise you."

"Um…thank you."

"Not at all, dear. Now, run along home – it's getting dark out!"

She watched them all the way to the well before closing the door.

At that moment, Tifa began to speak.

"What did she want you for?"

Cloud shrugged.

"Nuthin'."

"Cloud…friends don't keep secrets."

Something panged hard in his heart, but Cloud couldn't bring himself to say anything.

"C'mon, Cloud, you can tell me!"

The chocobo quickly cast about for something to say, anything, even if it was...

His eye caught movement in a lighted window of the old Strife house, now the home of Samantha and Nathan Johnson, and inspiration rushed through his mind.

"…She say not to nisten t' _hin_."

…a lie.

Tifa caught the direction of Cloud's gaze and made a soft sound of understanding.

"Don't tell me that's still upsetting you! Cloud, I told you he was all wrong."

Cloud shrugged, feeling guilty, but it was too late now.

"So what if you're small right now? You'll grow! You've _been_ growing – look at you, you're up to my elbow now!"

A year ago, when the Johnsons had arrived in Nibelheim, the male of the pair had examined Cloud at Mr. Lockhart's request. He had proclaimed Cloud a male (a statement that made Cloud flick an exasperated, long-suffering glance at Tifa, who giggled and rolled her eyes for him), and quite healthy, but for one exception.

Apparently, in his field of experience, it was rather unheard of for Chocobos to _not_ grow to full size within a year's time. The fact that Cloud had lived with the Lockharts for three years, and, at that time, was only as tall as Tifa's seven-year-old legs lead Mr. Johnson to suggest that Cloud had been born a midget of sorts, a runt, and would never grow much taller.

Both Tifa and Mrs. Perry had assured Cloud that the man was wrong, and Cloud was a special sort of chocobo somehow. It had taken Cloud several months (plus the realization that he was, indeed, still growing) to get over the man's words.

The two of them reached the front door of the Lockhart house by that time, and their voices dropped to whispers automatically.

"Tika, _s'okay_. I'n okay now. Nissus Terry…we talk. Good now."

"Well…if you're sure…"

"_Sure_-sure. G'night, Tika."

"Night, Cloud."

* * *

The latch on the outside of his door scraped, then rattled against the wood, and Cloud woke with a start. He froze instantly, his breathing slowed, and he watched the door as the entire thing creaked open and in stepped…

Mr. Lockhart.

Cloud raised his head, cheeping softly to himself in question.

The man looked utterly lost, but when he caught sight of the chocobo he straightened up and clapped his hands together twice.

"Come, Cloud. Come."

Still regarding him curiously, Cloud rose from his nest, stretched, and trotted over quickly.

Then, to his utter surprise, Mr. Lockhart's hands swooped down and scooped him up.

"Hey!" Cloud shouted, then immediately shut his beak, hoping the man hadn't noticed his slip-up.

He didn't. In fact, Mr. Lockhart seemed completely and utterly preoccupied as he carried Cloud out of his room and into the Lockhart house proper. He kept shifting his grip on Cloud, as though he wasn't sure if he should hold the chocobo with one hand or both, cradled in his arms or simply supported by his hands alone. There was something uneasy and panicked and deeply, desperately sad about his scent that put the chocobo on edge. Still, Cloud did his best to not wiggle about as Mr. Lockhart carried him up the stairs, opened a door, and set Cloud inside before closing it again.

The room was dim and the air inside was stifling and thick. The feathers along Cloud's spine stood on end; the entire area smelled of sickness and death. He could make out dark shapes of furniture – a chest, a dresser, a reflective thing called a mirror, pictures on the walls, and a large bed right in the middle, with a lump under the blankets…

"Cloud?"

The frail, old-sounding croak made Cloud's heart beat wildly in his chest, and he swallowed hard.

"Cloud? Is that…you? Come…come…"

A raspy fit of coughing broke the voice, and the lump on the bed shook and convulsed feebly.

"…here."

He forced his legs to unlock, wrenched one foot off of the carpet, and stepped forward. Carefully, more slowly than he would like to admit, he made his way to the bed and, using beak and claws on the blanket hanging over the edge, scrambled up onto its surface.

There, stretched out before him, propped up on pillows, was Rita Lockhart.

Cloud couldn't breathe for a long moment.

What happened to her?

She smiled shakily at him, though her face was thin and gaunt, and raised a trembling, bony hand. He hurried forward and let her rest that hand on his back, because as much as her appearance frightened him, she was still Tifa's mother, her protector, the one who drove a dog away with a broom to save her little girl and an even smaller chocobo chick…

What _happened_ to her?

Cloud sank to a crouch, staring with a slightly open beak. All at once, Mrs. Perry's words of the night before rushed back to him.

"…_she may not survive._"

With a soft cry, Cloud ducked his head down and thrust it against her side. She couldn't go. Tifa…Tifa needed her. She couldn't go!

"Ah…you know? Clever Cloud, clever…more than I…ever…"

Mrs. Lockhart stopped, breathed as deeply as she seemed able, and forced herself on.

"Tifa…is right. Isn't she? My girl…my baby, she saw…Cloud? Speak. Let me hear…know you can…"

What could he say, though? Cloud sat silent and frozen with indecision and years of habit and a creeping, cold fear in his chest, as though opening his beak to speak at last before Mrs. Lockhart – _to _Mrs. Lockhart – would break the feeble hold she had on life. So he sat, trembling, with one thin, pale hand across his back and the top of his head shoved against the woman's side, until she finally sighed and her hand slipped away from him.

Cloud looked up in alarm, but she was still breathing, and she looked at him intently with eyes that were still alive.

"Was I foolish…to believe?" she rasped. "Even now?"

Gathering his courage, Cloud unglued his beak and swallowed hard against the dry lump in his throat.

"No," he whispered at last. "Not soolish. Don't…don't go! Tika _needs_…Tika…"

The lump swelled up, and he found he couldn't speak anymore – he could barely breathe. Cloud choked on it, then dove forward and burrowed himself fully against the woman's side, the way he had once burrowed against his motherhen for comfort on dark nights when the monsters' calls were too close, too loud to let him sleep.

"So…it _is_ true…"

Even tired, sick, and weak, Rita Lockhart's words rang with wonder and relief. She moved her arm again, circling it around Cloud in a limp hug.

"I'm glad…thank you, C-cloud."

How long they lay together like that, Cloud couldn't tell. He thought it might have been minutes, or maybe hours – he thought it didn't matter at all. Time wasn't important just then…not important at all.

Mr. Lockhart eventually came back in to send Cloud out. Mrs. Lockhart had smiled, thanked them both, and called Cloud "a comfort." He had _wark_ed softly to her and made his way downstairs to perch on the couch beside Tifa. Neither girl nor chocobo looked at the other until Tifa was called upstairs a few minutes later by her reluctant father. Cloud had done his best then to send her a supporting eye-smile, but she still looked scared as she ascended the staircase. Cloud sat and stared at the floor for a long time, then crept up the stairs and found Mr. Lockhart pacing up and down the hallway. They glanced at each other for a moment before going their separate ways – Mr. Lockhart to continue pacing, and Cloud to huddle in a corner and wait.

Later in the afternoon, Mr. Lockhart tried to get Tifa to leave the room, but the little girl had refused, clutching her mother's blankets so hard that her knuckles turned white. Cloud slunk over beside her and crouched so their sides were touching, hoping to give her an anchor and a base.

Tifa's father gave up in mere minutes and merely sat down in a wooden chair at the bedside, gripping his wife's hand and dabbing her forehead with a damp cloth that smelled of sharp herbs.

For hours, Mrs. Lockhart merely slept. Then, suddenly, she awoke and immediately began to cough – deep, rasping coughs that shook her entire body as though something was trying to drag her lungs up through her throat.

All at once, Cloud smelled something salty-sweet-metallic.

"Tifa!" Mr. Lockhart said urgently, holding his wife in an attempt to keep her from jerking too much. "Go get the doctor! NOW!"

Without a word, Tifa scrambled to her feet and stumbled numbly to the door. Cloud followed, and the moment she jerked it open he was away, almost flying down the staircase and to the front door, where he hopped and jumped until he finally caught the latch – thankfully a lever instead of a knob – with his beak. One quick jerk and tug, and the door popped open.

Cloud could hear Tifa thumping down the stairs behind him, but he didn't stop to wait for her. He stuck his beak in the crack between door and doorframe, finished opening it, and burst outside.

The little chocobo worked his legs furiously, kicking up puffs of dust with every stride, but to his racing mind it felt like he spent minutes, rather than seconds, running from the Lockhart house to the Nibelheim Inn. When he was near the free-swinging door, Cloud ducked his head down and surged forward in a last burst of speed.

White light exploded in his head the moment it contacted wood, but his momentum was enough that he flew inside rather than bouncing backwards. He stumbled across the wooden floor, reeling and blinking spots from his vision until he could finally recognize the wide counter, with the doctor standing behind it and the next-door-dog-owner, Mr. Anders, before it. They had probably been having a conversation before Cloud had exploded into the room – now, both stared at him as though he had grown three heads and another set of legs.

Desperately aware of the seconds ticking away with every step he took, Cloud crossed the room quickly and leapt up onto the counter, flapping his wings to gain height and momentum.

"Rita," he gasped, not caring anymore who heard him and who didn't. "Rita!"

Mr. Anders gaped, but the Doctor immediately leaned forward.

"What, boy?"

Cloud puffed up his feathers with impatience and bellowed, "RITA ROCKHART! NOW!"

The doctor immediately sprang into action, swooping beneath the counter and grabbing out his black bag, rushing around to the open floor and snatching the hat from the coat rack on the way, passing Cloud and patting him on his feathered head with a hurried, "good bird," and blowing through the door just as Tifa skidded into the room, gasping for air and wiping at her eyes.

Suddenly, the hurry and the rush left Cloud, leaving him a tired, trembling, empty sack of flesh and feathers on the counter. He numbly jumped down, hit the floor, and hobbled over to Tifa. The little girl seemed just as lost and uncertain as he did.

Mr. Anders must have sensed something, because he immediately walked over and put one hand on Tifa's shoulder and the other on the top of Cloud's head.

"Come on, Tifa. I'll walk you home."

He paused, then gave Cloud's feathers a quick pat.

"Good bird. Good. Come."

To Tifa and Cloud's strange relief, they didn't walk too quickly.

Mr. Anders saw them inside the eerily silent house, complimented Tifa on her training of Cloud, and left again. The child and the chocobo huddled on the couch together until Mr. Lockhart came down to feed them supper – cereal for Tifa, grains for Cloud. Neither one of them felt hungry enough to eat, and Mr. Lockhart seemed too tired and worn to argue very much. Within the hour, Tifa was wandering toward the stairs to go to bed, keeping one hand on Cloud's back. They had stepped up one, two, three times when Mr. Lockhart's weary voice rose from the base of the staircase.

"Tifa? Where do you think you're taking that?"

Tifa half-turned, folding both arms around Cloud's neck.

"Just tonight?"

"Tifa –"

"Please, Daddy?"

"…All right."

There was no sense of joy or triumph at Mr. Lockhart's giving in. Nothing like the laughter and happy shouts they had always imagined the moment would arrive in. Instead, just a deep weariness and fear as the two of them supported each other all the way up the stairs.

In Tifa's room, she dragged the oversized basket that she had claimed as "Cloud's Inside Bed" years ago from under her bed, fluffed up the cushion in it, and spread a blanket inside. Cloud clambered into it and mashed the pillow further to his liking as Tifa changed into her jammies. She left to brush her teeth, came back, pushed her blankets down, and stopped to stare into empty space for several long, long moments.

When Tifa finally blinked back into awareness, she was also blinking water from her eyes.

She looked at Cloud, sniffled, and immediately turned back to her bed, shoving stuffed animals out of the way with quick efficiency. Once that was done, she turned and pointed at the now-clear area by her pillow.

"Cloud. Up here."

Cloud hesitated a moment, then stood up, hopped up onto the huge human mattress, and curled up where Tifa had indicated. She clambered up after him, pulled the blankets up, and reached over to switch off the lamp by her bed.

"G'night Cloud," she whispered, "sleep tight."

Tifa's voice caught in her throat, and she reached around her feathered friend, burying her face in his side.

Cloud stayed awake long enough to know that Tifa had cried herself to sleep, long enough that the tears in his feathers had mostly dried away, before sleep took him as well.

The next morning, Rita Lockhart was gone.


	10. With Purpose

_Rita Lockhart nee Bolts.  
__Loving Mother and Wife.  
__Deceased age 31.  
__Always In Our Memories._

The letters were engraved in his brain as surely as they were in the stone. Cloud could close his eyes and see them perfectly, unwavering, solid and hard and unchanging and _cold_.

It sort of felt good, the cold. It choked him until he couldn't breathe, gripped him around the neck and head and chest until he shivered and groaned with it, but he welcomed it all the same. It made the fire on his insides die down a little bit. The fire that rose up all dark and cruel around his mind whenever he thought of Tifa's helpless depression and her father's apathy and the inability of the other villagers to really understand.

Especially the children.

They just couldn't get what Tifa was going through. They thought they could, and they either tried to talk to her about it or they danced around it in an obvious sort of way and it sickened Cloud. Sickened him until he felt the fire rise too high and hot and he had to slip away to the graveyard and find the stone that marked the place Rita Lockhart's empty body had been buried and wait for the cold to come.

Cloud wondered if the fire might be called hate.

Sometimes he even wondered why he hated any of them, how he thought he had any right. After all, it wasn't _his_ mother gone, and _they_ didn't kill her. So why?

He could never come up with an answer beyond _it's hurting Tifa_ and _the way they act is hurting her more_.

And the hate, the fire, made him want to hurt them right back. Hurt the world right back.

The feathers across Cloud's back prickled as the flames rose again. He forced his blue eyes open and began to carve the letters across the stone again with his gaze.

The cold came, and he welcomed it again.

* * *

Tifa watched from her bedroom window as her closest friend wandered aimlessly away from their house and out of sight. She sighed and leaned her forehead against the cool glass, her eyes now staring at nothing, because there was nothing to stare at.

She knew where Cloud was going – where he went so very often lately. Her mother's…

She couldn't even think it.

Cloud probably thought that Mama was there. Tifa knew better, though. She remembered the stories they had heard and even read together. Mama wasn't in the g-graveyard. Not even in Nibelheim anymore.

She was high in the mountains.

That's where people went when they couldn't be here, the stories said. That's where they waited for all their loved ones. That's where you could find them again, and speak to them and be held by them. There, way past the dangerous paths and monsters and creaking rope bridges that the men talked about but wouldn't ever let the children go see because they were too perilous. Past the mountains that had scared her when she was little and scared her still.

Tifa wondered when she would find the courage to find her mama.

"…Tifa?"

It was Johnny.

Tifa rolled her head to the side and peered over her shoulder with one eye. The little boy and his two best friends stood awkwardly at her doorway, standing like they were afraid she'd bolt if they moved too quickly.

"Can we come in?"

Their voices were too soft and quiet – they reminded her of Daddy's voice when Mama wasn't well, and she hated being reminded of that – but she nodded anyhow. The boys filtered into the room and stood in its middle, still fidgety and nervous-looking. Johnny opened his mouth again; he must've been elected their spokesperson for the day.

"You doin' okay, Tifa?"

Tifa pressed herself up off of the window and nodded.

"Fine. You?"

The boys mumbled something that might have been positive replies, but Tifa wasn't really listening anymore at that point. She crossed over to her bed and sat down on it, crossing her feet at the ankles and knitting her fingers together in her lap. It was almost ritual by now; the boys would come over and try to talk to her, she would either be silent or give short, whispered answers, and eventually the boys would leave again. It never changed or deviated, except perhaps in what they tried to talk about, and she was certain that today would be no exception.

"An' your dad? Mum wants me to ask, you see…"

Tifa's heart jumped like it had been stabbed.

"Fine."

"Well…well, that's good…ummm…h-hey, did you know? There are some new berry bushes growing up by the north edge of the village. They're still green now, but Wel's dad said that they'll be ripe in a month or so – just a few weeks, if we're lucky! We can pick you some, if you like, or maybe by that time you can come out and pick some yourself with us."

Tifa really wasn't interested, but she didn't say it. That would be rude, so she just nodded a little, as usual.

"You know, the other day Dan was checking them again, and…well…"

Dan picked up where Johnny's voice trailed away.

"I ran across your chocobo. I…uh…Tifa? Is there anything…weird…going on with it? I mean…I dunno."

Tifa thought for a moment before listlessly shaking her head. Aside from Cloud's haunting the graveyard, there was nothing strange about him.

"Oh…okay. It's just that when I passed it, I swear I didn't even do anything, but it _glared_ at me. And it was _growling_. Can chocobos get rabies, do you suppose?"

"_Shut up, Dan_!" Johnny hissed quietly. Tifa heard him anyhow.

"Cloud's fine," she said softly. "He's just sad. That's all."

"Chocobos don't get sad, though," Wel said, puzzled. "They're just animals. I know you taught him to talk, but aunty says that it's just like the parrots and stuff from places like Gongaga."

Tifa didn't really feel like arguing. She knew Cloud. He wasn't just an animal. And he was very, very sad. It didn't matter that the boys didn't understand, or even that the entire town had convinced itself that Tifa had been training Cloud to merely repeat sounds…like her mother's name. It really didn't.

Soon enough the boys were talking about Gongaga and Mideel and Midgar and other exotic-sounding, far-away places that they had only heard of from better-travelled family members. They didn't notice Tifa's lack of attention, not as long as she made sure to nod now and again or to make a small sound of agreement if there was a pause in the conversation. Their voices quickly became background noise, and the little girl's thoughts drifted back to the mountains – the scary, dangerous, child's-nightmare mountains – and the mother she was sure was waiting for her at their peak.

She wanted to go, but it was so…scary. And wrong. She never disobeyed her father, and he had told her time and time again not to go near the mountains.

Her mother was never scared. Mama would do anything for her. She was brave.

And since mother was away for a little while, Tifa needed to be the brave one.

She made her decision in a snap of illogical thought and emotion. Ignoring the confused questions thrown out to her by Johnny, Wel, and Dan, Tifa stood up and walked out of her room, down the stairs, and to the front door. Pausing only long enough to yank on and lace up her shoes, she walked outside with purpose for the first time in weeks.

The boys followed her, clucking meaninglessly and jostling against each other in a clump. She wouldn't stop them. They'd better not try to stop her.

"Tifa! Tifa, stop, hey, wait up – Tifa!"

She didn't stop or even slow down, though she did throw a glance over her shoulder. Johnny had caught up and was looking at her with confusion etched into his face.

"I'm going to find Mama," she said, calmly and with clear purpose.

"What?" Wel gasped, tripping a little on his untied laces.

"Tifa, your mom's—"

"Waiting."

"What? Tifa, what're you—"

"In the mountains. She's up high in the mountains. The cave legend, remember it? She's there. I can find her, and then maybe she can come home."

"The _mountains_?" Dan squeaked. "Tifa, you know we can't!"

"Our parents'll kill us," Johnny insisted, grabbing for Tifa's hand. She shook it free and shot him an even look.

"I don't care," she said, still calm. "You can go back if you want to, or you can come with me. But I'm definitely going."

They were at the outskirts of the village now, drawing near the old graveyard. Tifa stopped at the wrought-iron fence that edged it.

"Cloud," she called firmly. "Cloud, come here for a second?"

For a few seconds, nothing moved. Tifa was patient, though, and soon enough there was the slight scritch of bird talons on packed earth and the golden chocobo came into view around a weathered old gravestone. He looked rather pathetic, covered in dust and loosened feathers, his oddly shaped crest bedraggled and drooping. Worst of all, though, were his eyes. The pretty blue was dead in the middle, like there was no life in them to reflect the light.

He missed her.

Tifa needed to fix that.

"Cloud. I'm going to find her."

He lifted his head and tilted it a bit.

"In the mountains. Remember the legend? With the cave, and the spirits that were stuck there until someone came and found them and took them out again?"

Some of the light returned to Cloud's eyes.

"Yes, Cloud. Mama's there. We're going to go find her."

The chocobo stood stock-still for a moment. Then he shook himself off briefly, tensed up, and took a running start at the fence. Just a few feet away from it, he pushed himself from the ground in a great leap, flapping his bright wings quickly. Tifa moved out of the way, and Cloud fluttered over the fence to land clumsily in front of her.

"You're learning to fly?" Tifa asked softly, walking back to where her friends were waiting, clumped together in the middle of the path. Cloud ducked his head and imitated a shrug. That was the extent of their conversation; a moment later they were with Johnny, Wel, and Dan, and the chocobo clammed up even more than he had before.

"Well, then…let's go," Tifa said, returning to her no-nonsense persona. She marched away toward the shadowy entrance to the mountain path with Cloud close at her side, leaving her friends to follow uncertainly.

Wel was the first to drop back.

"Guys? This really isn't a good idea…"

They had not been in the mountain's shadowy passages long when the boy's nerve failed him. He simply hit a point from which he could not move on. Cloud, who had spent the first few years of his life living on the craggy slopes, ignored him almost disdainfully. Tifa, however, paused long enough to turn around and smile lightly at him.

"It's okay, Wel. You go home."

"But, Tifa…"

"Go on. I'm not stopping."

The boy fidgeted nervously, then abruptly turned tail and stumbled back down the mountain path, though it was still wide and quite clear in comparison to those ahead.

Cloud waited for Tifa to catch up with him before continuing himself. Johnny and Dan struggled on behind them.

After another short while, Dan also turned back.

"It's too dangerous out here," he implored them, "let's just go, all right? Tifa, please, think about this!"

She refused, and so their party was reduced to only three.

By this time the sun was high in the sky, cutting down the shadows which had stretched over their path from the beginning. The rocky incline had become steeper and it wound sharply against the sides of the mountain, narrow and uneven. Cloud found that he could still balance perfectly on the stone, and so he spent much of the march lending support to Tifa. Her hand on his back calmed him and made him feel something other than fire or cold – for the first time in weeks, he felt complete.

Useful.

Here, at last, was a way he could help. She could keep her balance because of him.

Cloud felt…almost happy. Content, certainly. And, he thought, looking up at Tifa's face, she looked a bit happier as well. They were actually _doing_ something, and it filled them up.

Then, _Johnny_.

"Tifa? This is far enough. I'm serious. We have to go back right now."

"No. You go back. I'm going ahead."

"I said I'm serious!"

"No."

"Tifa!"

Cloud saw Johnny reach for Tifa's arm, intending to stop her however he could. Sudden irritation stabbed through the chocobo's mind – _this was making Tifa happy; she needed it!_ – and he whirled around and snapped angrily at the boy's hand before he really knew what he was doing.

"AAAAH!"

Johnny jerked his hand back, Cloud's sharp beak having just missed the soft flesh. The chocobo felt a flash of disappointment in his sudden anger, and then a flash of shame for that disappointment.

"Wh-what the heck is wrong with that bird?"

"Cloud, please. You didn't need to scare him."

Cloud glanced back and the shame grew. Tifa looked worried…and disappointed in him. He ruffled his feathers uneasily and scooted back to lean against the side of her leg. Maybe contact with her could soothe the angry fire again…?

"Sorry about that, Johnny."

"I'm fine, Tifa, but you'd better go home now. The mountain's bad enough, and now that chocobo's gone crazy!"

"Cloud has not!"

"He just tried to bite me!"

"You moved too fast, and he thought you were the one being mean."

"Tifa, the point is _he tried to bite me_! Chocobos don't eat meat, so they shouldn't bite anyone!"

"That's stupid."

"Wha--?"

"He wasn't gonna eat you, just scare you. 'Sides, didn't he fight with you guys before now, when you were being mean to him?"

"He just scratched then, and scratching doesn't count."

"That's still stupid."

Johnny turned red, floundering for an argument.

"_You're _stupid!"

Tifa stepped back suddenly, and Cloud stepped forward, lowering his head and growling a chocobo growl. Johnny pointed an accusing finger at him. Cloud suddenly wanted to snap it off.

"See? Birds don't act like that – it's gone crazy, and it'll hurt you! Let's just go home already, Tifa, please."

She shook her head.

"No."

Cloud tensed. There were tears in her voice. She was hurt, and she had been so happy before…before…

"_Go away_."

Johnny suddenly froze, dumbfounded. His jaw dropped and his eyes opened wide, staring at the chocobo before him as though it had mutated suddenly into a bizarre monster.

"Wha—wha—wh—?"

"I said, GO AWAY!"

"Cloud," Tifa said, half in warning. She understood him, and so she knew well why he never really spoke in front of other humans. Cloud looked quickly over his shoulder at her in what he hoped was a reassuring glance.

_I know what I'm doing_, it said, though there was a tiny little _I think…_ hovering just under the surface of his eyes.

"It's talking…no way…"

Johnny was slowly backing up. His shaking finger was still pointed at Cloud.

"Wait," the chocobo said suddenly, pinning the boy with a firm glare. "Tell no one I talk. None. Understand? They say _you're_ crazy one. _You're_ idiot. Yes? Good. Get lost."

"Tifa?" Johnny's voice was high-pitched, and his eyes flickered from girl to chocobo and back again quickly. "Tifa, stay right there, don't move too fast, this is too weird, I'm gonna get help, just stay…"

The boy suddenly whirled around and ran. As Cloud watched him go, he began to wonder if speaking up was such a good idea after all. Too late now, of course. Now he would simply have to hope for the best – perhaps the adults in the village would think that Johnny was making things up after all. They were quick enough to reach a safe explanation for Cloud's ability to speak Rita Lockhart's name to the doctor.

"Tika." Cloud said, dismissing these thoughts for the time being. "Ready?"

"Yeah…let's go find my mama."

The two friends walked on in near-silence, and soon enough Cloud was lost in nostalgia. It had been a few years since he had last been on the mountain proper, but everything still felt familiar. The rocks under his claws, the forms of the shadows, the slopes, the air…Memories, good and bad and mundane alike, swirled across his mind like mist. He could recall playing with two little chicks, one green and one black, probably somewhere very near here. He remembered a monster in the night, and the green one had been hurt.

But it had lived, hadn't it? Yes, yes it…it…

Cloud suddenly realized that he could barely remember their names…no, he couldn't remember them properly at all. And he wasn't sure how he felt about that. On the one claw, weren't they his siblings? Family? On the other, it had been a rather long time, and he had been adopted by another family, a human one. He even had a human name.

But they had been family. How did one forget family?

Tifa came to mind – she was family now. Cloud glanced quickly at her, and a vague, half-there thought rose in his consciousness: _what if he forgot her someday?_

"Never," he said aloud.

"What?"

"Tika. I…thorget. Thorget my…chocobo sisters and brothers."

"Cloud…"

Still walking, Cloud stared up at Tifa as earnestly as he could.

"They were _thamily_, Tika. I thorgot them. But now you're my thamily. And I promise…never. I never, never, _ever_ want to thorget you. O…okay?"

Silence hung heavily between them until Tifa dispersed it with a light giggle.

"Don't be silly, Cloud," she reprimanded, "we can't possibly forget about each other; we spend all our time together! You forgot the other chocobos because it's been a very long time since you saw them…you went away. But you're not going anywhere now."

"Yeah," he said, feeling a little embarrassed now, "Guess not. Sorry. Just silliness. You're right."

"It's okay. You must have…a lot of memories, being up here again."

"Yeah."

"Wanna tell me about them?"

Cloud thought hard, then shrugged.

"Not much to tell."

"Well, how many did you have? Brothers and sisters, I mean."

"I remember…three, four…five, I think. Two earlier, and three later, and maybe more throm bethore I remember."

"Wow! That's a lot. Was it crowded?"

"Not really. I grow slow, see?"

"Oh, yeah. So they grew up in batches, sort of?"

"Mm-hmm."

"You know, when I was really little, I wanted a brother or a sister. I never got one…until you came."

Cloud's heart swelled up, and he nodded.

"Thamily."

"Family," Tifa echoed. "Remember when you first came up to me, and you asked me for a cookie?"

"Didn't talk so good then, huh," the chocobo commented wryly, scuffling some loose stones under his claws. The air was getting a bit thinner; they had to be fairly high up.

"Not really," Tifa agreed, smiling again. "You're really getting better at this, Cloud. I don't know how you manage some of the sounds you can make."

He shrugged instead of replying, and they lapsed once again into a comfortable sort of quiet. The sun was still high; it warmed them wonderfully so that their outsides matched their insides – content. The fire was gone; the cold was gone. For the first time in weeks, both girl and chocobo felt a sort of peace in their determination to fix the thing that had gone horribly wrong before.

And so when they came upon the rickety old wooden bridge swaying above a deep gorge, neither one of them hesitated.

Tifa stepped onto the wood first and Cloud followed shortly after, both of them placing their feet carefully. The little girl gripped both of the guideropes along the sides tightly for balance; the chocobo, deprived of that option both by his height and by the fact that he had no hands, instead settled for spreading his wings and digging his claws into the wood with each step. The planks and ropes groaned slightly, but otherwise they seemed to be holding up. By the time they reached the middle of the bridge, they were walking with greater ease and confidence, so much so that they failed to notice the steadily-increasing moan that the right-hand ropes were making under the strain.

And then, only ten feet from the other side of the gorge, something snapped loudly. Before either Tifa or Cloud knew what was happening, the wood dropped out from underneath their feet.

They fell.

Instantly, instinctively, Cloud stretched his wings out and started to flap frantically, reaching at the same time with his claws for Tifa. His talons accidentally scratched along her arm and one side of her face before they latched onto the shoulder of her dress. Keeping his grip firm, Cloud funneled all the energy he possibly could into his wings, praying, hoping…

The ground kept approaching, and he wasn't sure if it was faster or slower than it had been before.

Tifa was screaming.

Cloud might have been as well; he couldn't tell what his voice was doing at that point. Only his wings, straining against the air and losing, and his heart, beating high and hard in his throat, existed in his perceptions.

Tifa struck the wall of the gorge, spinning them both around and getting Cloud's wings tangled in her hair and arms. They hit something else – an outcropping of rock, perhaps, or an old tree leaning out from the stone – and spun again.

Then, with a final jolt, Cloud's head impacted the side of the mountain, and all of his senses collapsed into utter darkness.


	11. A Change in Location

Things came back in pieces.

The fact that he had a body was one shard of reality that returned quickly. The fact that the body hurt was another. Then followed the realization that this meant he was alive, at least. He was battered, living, breathing, aching. Not dead. He lay sprawled across rough stone; his wing was pinned beneath him. He supposed it felt uncomfortable, but then, everything about him felt uncomfortable at the moment. His _feathers_ felt uncomfortable.

The stone was silent. The wind wasn't. _It_ whistled through the gorge, increasing the throb in his head when his ears finally caught the sound and refused to let go. The whistling mixed with his heartbeat, pounding, and he groaned, shifting a little for the first time since he had awakened.

The top of his head touched something solid, softer and warmer than rock. At first, he was puzzled as to what that could be. Then –

_--Blue dress, dark hair, old bridge, family, empty air, weak wings, fail to protect, hard stone—_

He remembered.

"Tee—kaaaah," Cloud croaked, lifting his feathered head and opening bleary eyes at last.

The little girl didn't move. Her face was turned away from him. Cloud struggled for a long moment, painstakingly turning onto his belly and getting his claws under himself. One scaly leg was hurt, skinned a little in the fall, as was the wing on the same side. They burned, and his entire head ached, but he ignored them as much as he possibly could. Staggering, Cloud regained his feet and began to limp, wiggle, and hop his way around to Tifa's other side.

"Tika?"

Her hair covered her face, but bits of it were moving a little around the area of her mouth and nose. She was breathing, at least, but Cloud could smell blood, and that scared him. He bent down, ignoring a wave of pain through his skull, and moved some of the hair away with his beak, nudging her forehead from time to time.

"Tika? Get up," he pleaded. "We…we still gotta find mama, 'member? Get up."

She didn't move except to take slow, rasping breaths. Her face was tense, like she was in pain.

The wind whistled, and on it, Cloud thought he heard human words, human voices.

He paid it no attention, but continued to move hair away from his best friend's face and nudge her from time to time – on the shoulder, the forehead, the temple – calling her name cautiously. She didn't respond.

Cloud's head ached, and the world was wavering again. Perhaps he had been hit harder than he thought…

"Tika, I…'m sorry."

The chocobo crouched down at Tifa's side, hunching over and shoving the top of his head under her chin. He closed his eyes and let his head throb in darkness. He would just rest a little while, and then he would get up – they'd both get up – and they'd go on. But for now, just rest.

The last thing Cloud was aware of was loud human voices – too loud – and an unsettling feeling of being lifted upward before all awareness fled at last.

* * *

A giant's roar woke Cloud. It startled him; he scrambled to his feet before he was fully conscious, blinking and wondering why he couldn't see anything properly. Then his vision slowly lightened, just enough for him to realize that he was in a dark, unfamiliar room, and that someone had placed him inside an open-topped box.

The roar returned. Cloud jumped and squeaked a little before he realized that it was a voice – Mr. Lockhart's voice – and that it was coming from outside. His words, however, were muffled by distance and probably by the walls and a closed door. Cloud had little doubt that whatever he was yelling, it was about Tifa. With a burning need to find out just what had happened to his best friend fueling him, Cloud began to scramble up the wooden, slatted side of the box, flapping his still-sore wings to help fight gravity. His small claws found purchase in the wood easily, and soon enough the little golden chocobo was perched on the edge of the box, looking around a small kitchen which was not the Lockhart one.

His head swiveled about; there, a glass window set in the wall above the sink. The voices were reaching him through that. If he got close enough, perhaps he could hear words.

Cloud fluttered to the ground from the top of the box and eyed the distance upward to the window. He wasn't sure if he could make it; he had barely started to flutter-hop, nevermind actually fly. In addition, the kitchen didn't allow much room for a running start.

"I have to try," he said aloud, squinting hard at the window. Somehow, actually saying the words made them more real. The chocobo backed up until his tail feathers hit the opposite wall, ground his feet firmly into the floorboards, and cocked his wings in preparation. With a rising grunt, he charged, wings flapping wildly before he was halfway across the floor, before he'd gotten very much speed up, and he wasn't going to make it…

"Uuuh!"

Cloud's chest hit the rim of the sink. He started to fall backwards. In desperation, he swung his head forward and down, and the hook of his beak barely caught the inside edge of the sink. Kicking out with his feet, he drove himself upward to perch on the rim, shaking in a combination of elation and delayed fear. If a chocobo's beak could grin, Cloud's would have.

"…_Not having it anywhere near her!"_

Cloud's head whipped to the side, remembering the loud tones that had drawn him there. Mr. Lockhart wasn't shouting so loudly any more, but his words were now audible at least. Cloud hopped across the sink and peered through the window.

There, on the lawn, stood the owner of the loud voice and the owner of the next-door house, Mr. Johnson, the chocobo handler who had proclaimed Cloud a midget. The former stood rigidly, like the other next-door's dog when it caught sight of Cloud but couldn't move beyond the furthest extent of its leash. Mr. Johnson was a more wary kind of rigid, but he was standing his ground. It looked very much as though they were arguing, and Cloud wondered what it was about. He quickly got his answer.

"I don't see how it was the bird's fault, sir. I know that you're upset, but is this really necessary?"

"Yes. That thing was supposed to be tame, but lately it's been acting more and more wild. If it goes haring off into the mountains again, I don't want Tifa following it! Look what happened this time – maybe next time she'll get a broken neck instead of a concussion! I don't care what you do, just as long as we never have to see it again."

Mr. Johnson sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"All right, then. Your choice. I guess I could get hold of one of my contacts – maybe Bill – and see about having him taken in there. It won't be easy, though. He's a rare gold, yeah, but his growth has been hampered somehow – he's more like a six-month chocobo than a three-year one. Not many people would be interested in taking him."

"I don't care," Mr. Lockhart repeated, folding his arms stubbornly. "Do whatever you have to. I just want it gone by the end of this week."

Cloud didn't want to hear any more. He backed away from the window and fell into the sink. There was something empty in his middle. It hurt and echoed with his heartbeat, which sounded very far away. It wasn't hot, like hate-fire, nor was it cold, like grief. It was just…there and nothing.

But Tifa was all right. At least, she was alive. Cloud didn't know what a concussion was, but from Mr. Lockhart's words, it was better than a broken neck, and that would've been _dead_.

Try as he might, however, Cloud couldn't get much comfort from the thought. He couldn't because he was being sent away, and he wasn't a complete fool – he knew Tifa needed him on some level. Mrs. Perry said so. His private grief in the graveyard had been utterly selfish, he saw that now _– too late, stupid_ – and he had to find a way to fix everything that had gotten broken because he hadn't been smart enough or strong enough to be an anchor for his friend. Not smart enough or strong enough to face reality and help her to do the same. Mrs. Lockhart was gone; nothing could be done about it. Now he, Cloud, was also about to be gone…though he had to wonder if there was a way to prevent it this time. There had to be.

First, though, he thought, the hole inside of him closing up with purpose, he needed some wisdom. He felt he was headed in the right direction this time by actually _doing _something about his problem, but he'd already muddled up quite enough by himself, and a little outside advice would be a nice thing to have.

He had to get out. He had to go and visit the one person, aside from Tifa, who understood him.

Cloud stood up in the empty sink and stared calculatingly at the window, noting the shape of the latch and thinking it an easy one to undo. Sure enough, once he got his beak on it he barely had to jostle the thing before it clicked open.

The yard was clear. Apparently, the two men had finished their conversation and gone elsewhere while Cloud sorted through his mind and emotions. That suited him just fine; nobody was around to notice the little chocobo push the window outward and flutter to the ground.

Now that he was outside, things seemed a little less certain, far more open to chance and happenstance. Anything could go wrong. Cloud glanced around and he happened to catch sight of Tifa's bedroom window, far above him. He knew it was hers because he recognized the curtains behind the glass. They were closed, just like Mrs. Lockhart's had been. Just like he was about to be closed out of her life.

Purpose reaffirmed, Cloud trotted off through town in the late afternoon light.

* * *

"Missus Perry?"

Cloud stuck his beak in the door, then the rest of his head. The house was dim and quiet.

"Missus Perry? It's me. Cloud. Can I come in?"

For a while, there was no reply. Then, with a quiet creaking of old hinges, a door far down the long, straight entry hall opened, and the old woman shuffled into view, leaning heavily on a cane. She blinked down at Cloud from behind her thick glasses as though surprised.

"Cloud? Yes, yes, come in. How on earth did you open that, dear?"

Cloud squeezed through the gap and shut the door with his foot.

"Jumped. Lots of flapping. Sorry, Missus, but…I need to talk with you. Please?"

"I rather think you do. I've never heard you say quite so much before. What's wrong? How is Tifa?"

As she spoke, Mrs. Perry made her way down the hall and into the familiar, cozy-cluttered sitting room. Cloud followed her, making sure to match her slow pace.

"Mr. Lockhart said con-ca-shun. I don't know."

"Poor child. I must say I'm surprised you aren't waiting at her side, though. This must be important."

Mrs. Perry settled herself at last in her usual chair and spread the thick blanket over her lap. She patted it, and Cloud jumped up without hesitation.

"Now, go on. Tell me everything."

And Cloud did. It was haphazard and jumbled, without clear order – the first thing out of his beak was a summary of the conversation he had overheard, followed by an expression of his guilt over the selfish grief he had experienced after Mrs. Lockhart's death, followed by the trip into the mountains that had ended in their fall. Everything Cloud had bottled up came pouring out, leaving the chocobo feeling both relieved and oddly bare, as though he had just plucked out his wingfeathers and stood helplessly in the middle of open ground, unable to fly or run. Mrs. Perry, for her part, was a good listener. She rarely asked questions, trusting Cloud to finish his tale and explain everything in it himself, and prompted him whenever he began to run out of steam or struggled to find the words he needed.

"…and when I woke up, I heard them talking, and I don't want to be sent away! I've gotta do something, but I dunno what. I need to thix this. What do I do?"

Mrs. Perry stroked the feathers across Cloud's back thoughtfully. He was grateful for the contact; it calmed him, made him feel both protected and a little more in control of himself.

"What a pickle," Mrs. Perry murmured quietly. "Honestly, that man. He always was an emotional child. The problem is that he has the tenacity of a bulldog. Once he grabs hold of something, he won't let go."

"So, is there…anything I can do? At all? Maybe ith I talked to them…?"

"You could try, Cloud, but I'm not sure even that would work. The shock value is tremendous, and after today's events, a surprise like that could send him too far over the edge. Tell me, what were his exact words concerning this decision? Can you remember?"

"I think so. He said something like I have to be gone this week, and he didn't care where. And…um…I think, 'I don't want it anywhere near Tifa' or something."

"Pig-headed brute."

"I shouldn't talk to him now, huh?"

"No, it probably is not the best idea. Panicked dogs tend to bite. Tell you what: I'll see about talking to him for you tomorrow. All right?"

Cloud knew it wasn't likely to work, and he knew that Mrs. Perry knew it, too. All the same, it was very kind of her to make an attempt, and he felt his flagging spirits lift somewhat.

"Thank you," he said sincerely, "thank you very much."

"Not a problem, dear. You can stay the night here with me. I'm not worried about a 'wild animal' such as you."

She tapped him on the beak playfully. Cloud snickered. Already, he felt much better about everything. Maybe he realized deep inside that nothing could derail Mr. Lockhart in his quest for a scapegoat, and nothing could prevent his leaving Nibelheim, but here in the cozy sitting room with Mrs. Perry, all of his worries lifted from his mind momentarily. He had plenty of time to think up another solution, after all.

And so that night, for the first time in many, Cloud slept peacefully.

* * *

The next morning Mrs. Perry got up early, clothed herself in a faded blue dress with bits of lace sewn around the cuffs and collar, and managed to march out of her house while leaning on her cane. Cloud watched her go from the wide window in the living room, and he watched her return barely half an hour later, still marching though it was with a far more jerking gait. He didn't need to hear her apology upon entering the room again to know that her argument had failed.

"He's as set as the stones at the base of Mt. Nibel," she complained, removing her blue-ribboned straw hat and hanging it on the coat tree just beside the doorway. "Wouldn't even consider the idea of me taking you in – thinks that anywhere in town is too close. Stubborn, idiot boy."

"It's okay," Cloud said, "really. Thanks for trying at least."

"No, it's not okay," Mrs. Perry replied. Cloud was taken aback; he had considered the woman lively before with her quick chatter and bright eyes, but compared to this fervor, she might as well have been half-dead. It was like a sleepy motherhen roused by danger near her nest – naught to fighting in moments, a complete transformation.

"He never made a direct threat against you, but he _implied_, and oh…"

Mrs. Perry thumped her cane hard against the floor, glared at the fireplace for a moment, then turned around and shuffled across the hallway to the kitchen, muttering something about a cup of tea. Cloud followed, having nowhere else to be and nothing else to do.

Mrs. Perry set a tea kettle on the stove, turned on the heat, and dug a tin from the cupboard.

"Cookie?"

Cloud could smell the treats as she pried the tin open. His mouth started to water.

"Yes, please."

"Up here, then," Mrs. Perry said, patting the counter. Cloud backed up, got his running start, and managed to flutter high enough to get his toes on the countertop. The surface was slick but he kept his balance, and received a round butter cookie as a reward. Cloud broke a chunk off and held it in one claw, digging his beak into the soft, crumbly treat with gusto. The water in the tea kettle was starting to boil; soon it would whistle with steam.

"So. We need to decide what to do now."

"Mm."

"One option, I suppose, would be if you stayed with me anyhow. The problem is that you'd have to stay out of Lockhart's sight at all times; if he caught so much as a glimpse of you…"

Cloud thought through what that meant. It meant no seeing Tifa, at least not openly, and not often. It meant he couldn't go outside much, if at all. Mrs. Perry was nice, and her house was a cozy sort of place to come and visit somebody in, but he couldn't imagine living here day after day. Soon enough, it would become a prison rather than a home.

"I think I'd go crazy," Cloud said slowly, nibbling now on the cookie chunk he held. "I like you, and it's nice here, but…"

"You need the outdoors, don't you?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"That's fine, Cloud. Don't apologize for who you are. Now, another alternative might be turning you loose to live on your own in the mountains. I'm not too sure I like that option. It's like an exile combined with a death sentence. Whatever _he_ says, you're not a wild chocobo any more."

"I know how to find food," Cloud said, thinking it through. "I could live in a little cave up there – there's lots of them. Winter won't be too bad if I go deep enough and put leaves and stuff in there…"

"Monsters."

"Oh…right."

Cloud looked down at himself; he was perhaps two and a half to three feet tall, with still-developing wings and talons. He might be able to outrun some of the creatures that inhabited the mountains, but he definitely couldn't outfly the winged sorts, nor could he reasonably expect to fight any but the very smallest, weakest ones off. The first fast, decently-sized, hungry monster that he crossed paths with would make a lunch of him.

"That, and in terms of development, I'd say you're perhaps an eight, nine-year-old boy. Technically you might be able to take care of yourself, but I wouldn't want to test that out just yet. Not unless we have no other solutions."

The tea kettle whistled shrilly. Mrs. Perry moved it from the heat and started to prepare the drink itself. Cloud broke another chunk from his cookie – now a little over half gone – and nibbled at the edges contemplatively. Try as he might, he could see no other options but one.

"Maybe I should just go," he muttered. Saying the thought aloud was scary. It made it feel final, and Cloud had to remind himself firmly that it was only an option, not a promise.

"Say what?" Mrs. Perry asked, half-turning from her flower-patterned teapot and the knitted tea cozy she had been shoving over it. "Just go, just like that?"

"What else can I do?"

"Honey, you shouldn't give in and just let them take you…"

"It's not giving in, and they aren't taking me. Not if I _choose_ to go."

Mrs. Perry looked at Cloud in surprise for a long moment. She blinked, then she opened her mouth and laughed loudly.

"Clever, Cloud! No, I suppose that if you go of your own will it's entirely different from being forced. Are you sure this would be what you want, though? Remember, humans tend to treat chocobos like possessions. We're not really used to the idea of a chocobo who can think intelligently."

"Sure? Not really," Cloud replied quietly, studying the cookie in his claws. "Dunno what's out there, or where I'd be going. Just rather walk out than get thrown out. 'Cause if I leave, maybe I can come back."

"I could get information," Mrs. Perry said seriously, leaning against the counter beside Cloud. "My grandson-in-law would be the one making arrangements anyhow. Perhaps I could persuade him to take us out to the place you choose."

"Yeah…wait, us?"

"I'd want to see you off, of course. Besides, it's been too long since I was out of town – some different air would be good for these old lungs, and I've no intention of simply rotting here straight through the next ten years!"

Cloud giggled softly, but his mind was more focused on the vague possibility of leaving – the possibility that seemed to be becoming more and more reality. He ducked his head and finished off the cookie chunk in his claw, thinking hard. What he had before him was not an easy choice – some might say it wasn't a choice at all, since he was forced to it by circumstance and by an overprotective father who also happened to be the mayor of the town – and he needed to consider it carefully.

Stay here, with Mrs. Perry. The upside was that he would be cared for, sheltered from danger, and he could see Tifa now and again. The downside would be constant danger of discovery, which meant that he'd be trapped inside the house, probably in a back room in case someone came over on a visit. On top of that, Mrs. Perry's home was small; what would happen if he finally reached full size?

Strike out on his own in the mountains. He knew what greens to eat, he was familiar with the wilderness. His feathers gave him a layer of protection against cold air that humans lacked, and there would be plenty of room to run and fly and grow in. Unfortunately, all of that was moot if a monster ate him the second day out there. In addition, he wasn't sure he was really ready to forgo the reliable shelters and care that human hands could provide.

Leave voluntarily to a place outside Nibelheim. Cloud had no idea what to expect except that it would probably involve other humans and possibly other chocobos. In all likelihood he would be safe from monsters, but he could also wind up trapped and far away from Tifa and the only homes he knew. He needed that information to be sure.

"Could you? Talk to Mr. Johnson, I mean. About the outside-places. I want to know…just in case."

Mrs. Perry got up and checked her teapot. Apparently satisfied, she poured two cups of tea and passed one over to Cloud with a smile.

"Of course, dear."

Cloud scrunched his cheeks into his eyes in the biggest returning smile he could make and dunked the remains of his cookie into the steaming tea.

Maybe, with a little luck, they could find a way to make this work.

* * *

Mrs. Perry called her grandson-in-law over the next day and sat him down to talk over the options he thought the little chocobo might have. Cloud crouched quietly beside her armchair as the young man spoke, listening but not openly reacting to what he heard.

"Well, there's the general stables at Midgar. They're pretty expansive and are always looking for new chocobos. I wouldn't want to send him there right off, though – the size and bustle of the city could literally scare him to death. It doesn't happen often, but I've heard of a few incidents where they transfer a chocobo directly from the country to the city…"

"Hmm. I've not heard much about Midgar that wasn't all diamond-polished and steel-strong. I don't trust the rumors about how wonderful it is. What's another option?"

"Chocobo Bill is always a good one. He's more a trader, a transfer point between different locations, but he takes good care of his birds and he does his best to send them to good places. I think he'd be excited to get a gold, though Cloud's stunted growth could put him off a little. He's my first choice, really."

"Any more?"

"Dio at the Gold Saucer might be interested if I could sell him on the idea of tourist attraction or something like that. Some gimmick like a little gold chocobo to represent his park. He doesn't treat his birds badly either, and the crowds at the park won't be nearly as awful as Midgar's. Then there's Sam in Junon and maybe, _maybe_ Kurt in Costa del Sol."

"And what about them?" Mrs. Perry prompted, never taking her eyes from the wooly stocking cap she was knitting. For his part, Mr. Johnson had taken up a staring contest with his reflection in the cup of coffee he was nursing.

"Sam and Kurt? Well, Sam's more a small-time dealer, and he's more into breeding the chocobos. Cloud here'll probably never reach that physical maturity – I'm frankly amazed he's continued to grow at all, slow as it's been."

"Don't expect he'd be interested anyhow," Mrs. Perry muttered quietly, looping blue yarn deftly around her silvery needles.

"As for Kurt…he deals in racers exclusively, and I think he's a little too driven by profit to take Cloud in like that. I could probably call in a favor from a few years ago, but that's stretching things a bit."

"Hmm. Midgar, the chocobo farm, Gold Saucer, Junon and Costa del Sol. Is that all of them?"

"All I could possibly contact on such short notice," Mr. Johnson said, sounding a little frazzled. "I'm not sure how the mayor really expects me to find a new home for the little guy in just a week. Tried arguing it with him, but he won't budge. I'll just have to hope that I get a _yes _from one of them in the next few days."

"Sometimes he can be a great bully," Mrs. Perry said boldly, "though I will grant that he honestly believes he's doing his little girl a good turn. It's a misguided idea, but he's not a truly bad man at the core."

"No, probably not." Mr. Johnson took a gulp of coffee and a puzzled frown spread across his face. "Just wondering, but why the interest?"

"Because I quite like Cloud and I want something good for him," Mrs. Perry replied frankly. Cloud felt an awkward smile rise in his eyes and face, the sort of conflicting expression which few would be able to read in him.

"You do realize that if only one person gives me an okay, there won't be much choice involved. I've done the best I can just contacting these guys," Mr. Johnson warned.

"I'm sure. Now, if you could tell me a little about this 'Dio,' I'd greatly appreciate it…"

And so it went on through the next hour and a half. Soon enough, Cloud began to feel that there was so much new information being stuffed into his head that it would start leaking out of his eyes and earholes if it didn't stop. He learned that Costa del Sol was the closest to Nibelheim and the Chocobo Farm furthest away. He learned that while the Midgar and Gold Saucer stables were mostly managed by an assortment of people paid to care for the chocobos, Bill, Sam, and Kurt each saw to their own with only a little help – which meant fewer people to deal with and probably better attention from those people. He learned that Sam was careless with the chocobo feed, Bill was careless with latching the stalls, and Kurt was careless with his drink (he'd have to ask Mrs. Perry what that meant, though he guessed it was a bad thing from her reaction). He learned that while none of them purposefully mistreated the chocobos under their care, all of them would certainly regard him as a dumb beast rather than a person, just as Mrs. Perry had warned him.

He learned that the world was so, so much bigger than anything he might have imagined.

At long last, Mr. Johnson finally left. Mrs. Perry and Cloud stood together at the window, watching him go.

"Don't make a decision right now, Cloud," Mrs. Perry told him without turning. "Not unless you know for certain that it is what you need to do. You can wait a day or two, think it over a little more. Whatever you pick, even if it's to go out alone into the mountains, I promise I won't condemn or dissuade you. You just make sure it's _right_."

"Okay," the chocobo said, his eyes fixed on the blue sky outside and the jagged, close-set horizon made by the mountain peaks, wondering vaguely what the sky might look like if it met grass or water instead and finding himself quite unable to imagine such a sight.

Mrs. Perry checked the time.

"Well, I'm off for a nap now. I'll leave you a slice of bread on the counter if you get hungry. We can talk about this some more over supper if you need to."

She patted Cloud softly on the head and hobbled off, first to the kitchen, and then down the long hallway to her bedroom. Cloud settled down in the cushions of the window seat he was perched on and stared blindly out through the window, thinking hard.

Just a couple of hours later, when Mrs. Perry arose again, she found a far more resolute Cloud sitting there, frozen as though he had never moved, though the bread in the kitchen was gone.

The golden chocobo turned his head to face her, and she saw firm surety in his bright blue eyes. Mrs. Perry nodded, folding her hands across the top of her cane.

"You've decided," she said.

"Bill's tharm," he replied, "I think Bill's tharm would be best."

"I'm glad."

Cloud looked a little surprised.

"It's…such a long way. I thought you'd argue a bit."

"I did say that I wouldn't try to dissuade you if you knew where to go. Don't worry, Cloud – I know you know, and I'll help you make this work. That's a promise."

"Thank you."

"It's not a problem, Cloud. Not a problem at all."

* * *

As it turned out, Bill was the first of Mr. Johnson's contacts to reply. He was perfectly willing to take in the 'miniature chocobo,' and so it was just two days later that a truck came out to Nibelheim to pick up the passengers: both of the Johnsons, Mrs. Perry, and Cloud himself. Some of the townspeople lined the dusty center of Nibelheim near the water tower to see them off, all of them with the clear understanding that while this was something like a rare vacation for Mrs. Perry, who had been with them for so long, and for the Johnsons, who were good neighbors despite coming from outside of town, the little chocobo with them would not be coming back. And if he was not coming back, then he was, for all intents and purposes, dead to them the moment the truck rumbled out of sight down the mountainside.

Despite knowing and understanding this mindset, Cloud felt far too physically miserable to be depressed by anything as Nibelheim vanished from view. The truck bounced over some ruts in the road; the chocobo in the back clamped his beak shut and tried not to moan.

It was the first three minutes of a five-day journey by truck and ship, and Cloud had just discovered that he was prone to motion sickness.

* * *

Truck from Nibelheim to Costa del Sol: two days of abject misery during which Cloud hardly dared open his beak for fear of heaving up anything in his stomach. Ship from Costa del Sol to Junon: one day in a dark, funny-smelling hold which moved and rocked worse than the truck ever had; this time, Cloud _did _lose his lunch. Truck from Junon to the Chocobo Farm: two more days of misery which, when compared to the boat, were almost blissful. At least Cloud managed to keep down what little he dared to eat that time.

When Cloud finally hopped down from the truck bed for the last time, he swore that he would learn to fly properly, and he would gain the strength and stamina to do it across the ocean if need be, because he was _not_ going through another ordeal such as that one. Still feeling ill and a little woozy, Cloud staggered after the Johnsons to meet a short, rotund, grey-haired man wearing coveralls and a big smile.

"Good to see you again, Nathan! I see you brought half the family with you, though…what's the occasion?"

Mr. Johnson clasped hands with Bill, nodding in a friendly manner.

"Nothing much, I just came to see the chocobo here safely, and Samantha came to keep an eye on Grandma Perry."

Bill swept his hat from his head in an exaggerated manner and winked cheerfully at the two women.

"Charmed," he said, replacing the hat after his bow and adjusting it with a quick tug. "I can have my grandchildren, Billy and Chloe, show you around the chocobo pens if you've got time or the inclination. In the meantime, could I see this bird you're having me take in?"

Cloud trotted forward dutifully, getting his legs back to the point where they worked properly over solid ground. He stopped in front of the very large man and looked up into an intelligent, good-natured face.

"Well, bless me," the man whispered in near-reverence, crouching down and reaching out to poke Cloud in the side. Cloud figured Bill wanted his wings spread, so he did so, feeling a bit nervous. "Sure enough, the primaries're shaped for flight, and the span's about right. A natural golden chocobo. Nathan, you surprise me! I honestly thought you were either pulling my leg or you'd mistaken a wonderful yellow…by Bahamut, he's _amazing_!"

Cloud folded his wings, feeling a little self-conscious. He refused the temptation to go hide behind Mrs. Perry, though; soon enough, he wouldn't have her to hide behind, and he was determined to start out this new part of his life as strongly as possible.

"So you'll take care of him?" Mr. Johnson was asking. Bill stood up, grinning like a kid with a whole jar of candy.

"'Course I will! Small or not, a _gold_ on my farm…most people spend _years_ breeding the birds and never get so lucky, and he just appears out of nature's own cradle in the middle of nowhere…sometimes I swear the planet's laughing at us!"

"Could be, old friend," Mr. Johnson said, then he checked his watch and looked back at the truck idling in the yard. The driver was waiting inside the cab. "I'll help you get him settled, and then we're going back."

"Sounds like a plan. Nathan, I owe you big. Bragging rights _alone_…"

"_Ahem_."

Chocobo Bill and Mr. Johnson both stopped and looked over their shoulder. Mrs. Perry was standing with both hands folded politely atop her cane and looking pointedly at Bill.

"I wonder," she said slowly, "if, perhaps, while our grandchildren show Cloud his new home, I might have a short word with you?"

"Oh, well, yes, of course," Bill replied confusedly. "Right this way, please. Nathan, my grandkids should be in the stables, so if you just head right on over there with…Cloud, was it? I'll be with you right quick."

Cloud watched them go into the small house nearby. His stomach was fluttering, and he rather wished he could go along just to hear what was being said; he had a slight suspicion that Mrs. Perry was going to tell Bill something important, something about _Cloud_, and as nice as it might be to be able to trust someone here, the chocobo was too used to hiding everything he was to simply stop doing so. Unfortunately, he had little choice at the moment; Mr. and Mrs. Johnson were heading to the white building with the roof like half a cylinder, and Cloud needed to follow them.

The inside of the stable was roomy and comfortable, large even by a full-sized chocobo's standards. For Cloud, it was almost overwhelming.

"Billy? Chloe? You in here?"

Two heads popped out of two different doorways. Both faces lit up upon seeing Cloud.

"My gosh, is that really a gold like grandpa said?"

"Aw, it's so adorable!"

Cloud blinked and reeled back slightly as the two children dashed down the length of the stable toward them. Fortunately, instead of diving upon Cloud they both stopped and each grabbed an adult's hand to drag them toward the farthest stall.

"Come on, this way!"

"Here, choco-choco! Follow us!"

"Whoah, you two are excited about this!" Mrs. Johnson exclaimed with a laugh.

Cloud ruffled his feathers at the 'choco-choco' comment and he considered stubbornly staying put. Unfortunately, neither child knew his real name, so it would be rather pointless. With a quick sigh, he followed the group of humans deeper into the stables to inspect his new 'room.'

It was large, he noted right off, standing in the doorway and shuffling his feet through the clean, dry straw. The front wall of the stall was half-open, full of gaps between the wooden slats which he could look through, and the door opened outward. In addition, he could see the metal loop for the bolt on the outside, and it appeared to be meant for a simple sliding latch set high enough on the door that Cloud could easily fly up, perch between the bars, and reach it with his beak. There was a wooden box set halfway up the front wall – probably for food – and, just inside the door, a pair of plastic food and water bowls which Cloud guessed were meant to accommodate his smaller stature.

"Look good, buddy?" the little boy asked. Cloud didn't bother answering; Billy's question had been asked in the teasing, light sort of tone one used around dumb animals and very small children. Instead, he stepped fully into the stall and took a deep breath.

_His_, now.

"Looks like he's getting himself settled," Mr. Johnson said. "Come on. We'll wait for grandma Perry out by the truck."

Cloud heard the door swing shut and the latch slide into place. The four humans walked away, their footsteps and conversation fading to a dim hum. Only once they were gone did he move again. Guaging the distance carefully, Cloud backed up, got his running start, and flapped until he landed between the bars on the door. Edging over carefully until he was right above the latch, he reached down and gripped the knob of the sliding bolt in his beak. It was well-oiled and moved smoothly. On top of that, the door rested on its hinges in such a way that it apparently stood open more readily than it stayed closed; the moment Cloud popped the bolt across, the door he sat upon shifted, creaking slowly ajar.

Satisfied, the chocobo fluttered back down to the floor and set to exploring his room a little more thoroughly. He hadn't even finished mashing down a small nest in the corner when he heard two slow sets of footsteps, one accompanied by the thunk of a cane, coming down the middle of the stable. In just a couple of moments, Mrs. Perry and Chocobo Bill appeared in his doorway.

"Cloud," Mrs. Perry called softly. "Came to say goodbye for now. Are you doing all right?"

Cloud hesitated. He wanted to stay strong, to avoid depending on any comfort this last moment before he was truly alone…

Mrs. Perry knelt slowly and painfully. She laid her cane beside her and held out both arms, her hands welcomingly open.

"Nothing wrong with one hug," she said.

Cloud gave in and rushed over to her. The old woman folded her arms around him briefly before setting him back down on the ground and giving his head a quick scritch.

"There's a boy. Now, you'll behave for Bill, of course. I've told him you're something special, and he believes me, so you don't need to be afraid of who you are around him. Understand?"

Cloud cast a swift, doubting glance at Chocobo Bill, who returned it with frank kindness and a quick wink.

"Oh, and one last thing," Mrs. Perry said, holding her hand up. Bill grasped it and helped her back to her feet, bending down to return her cane also. The old lady accepted it back and rummaged quickly through the sole handbag she owned and had brought along with her for the trip. Cloud watched curiously; he had no idea what she was keeping in the thing, having never seen her open it before.

"Ah, here. A going-away present. Take good care of it, Cloud."

Awkwardly, reverently, Cloud reached forward to take the small paperback book of Nibelheim fairy tales and cradle it with both wings against his chest. He and Tifa used to read similar books together all the time, and he hadn't stopped to think before now about how scarce reading material could be as a chocobo on a chocobo farm.

"Thank you," he whispered, not bothering to glance at Bill. The man had just seen Mrs. Perry hand a book over to him. At this point, talking shouldn't be a bother.

"You're welcome, dear. Do try and come back to visit once you're all grown up and strong, and you can tell us all about the world out here. All right?"

Cloud nodded fervently, then a thought occurred to him.

"Wait," he said, turning around and hurrying awkwardly over to his self-made nest of straw. He laid the book down carefully next to it, then reached down with his beak and yanked two small golden feathers from his chest. The pricks of pain that accompanied the actions were easily ignored. Cloud took both feathers up in his beak and ran back over to Mrs. Perry, who reached downward and took them carefully in her weathered hand.

"One for you," Cloud breathed, "and one for Tika. I promise, I'll come back."

"I'll get it to her," Mrs. Perry said, smiling shakily. She slipped the feathers into her handbag and snapped it closed as though it contained the greatest, most fragile treasure in the world. "Thank you, Cloud. I hope to see you again soon. Take care."

And with that, Cloud watched her go. Minutes later, he heard the truck outside roar to life, and then even that dwindled away into nothing.

"You're something else, kid," Chocobo Bill finally said, leaning against the wall of Cloud's stall and chewing on a long stem of grass. "Amazing. First golden chocobo I see since I was twelve years old, and not only is it a natural-born from the Nibel mountains but it's got a human brain to boot. Someday, I gotta ask you just what you chocobos eat up there."

The elderly rancher hefted himself from the wall and headed for the door.

"Welcome to the farm, Cloud," he said as he left, "and if you don't mind it, I'd also say welcome to the family."

He left the door open.


	12. Reading and Friendship

The gate was unlatched.

It stood invitingly open, left swinging softly on its hinges by an absent-minded grandfather who had been called into the house for lunch, and the corral was empty. Bill always swore that he had remembered to close and lock the gates and stall doors. Perhaps he did remember doing it; perhaps the actions were so deeply ingrained in his mind by a lifetime of performing them that his brain conjured the feel of the motions without actually telling his hands to lift, push, or pull. Whatever the reason, it was a basic fact of life on Bill's farm that at least twice a month the chocobos would escape to wander freely over the fields until they were collected again. The chocobo lure materia was so often mastered that the little family actually had several spares which they could sell to the occasional visitor more interested in catching his own temporary rides than in buying or renting one from Bill.

One of these spares was now housed in a circular ring of magic-conductive metal set in the center of a wide, loose collar – more like a leather necklace, really – hanging around the neck of a certain golden chocobo. The orb of condensed spirit energy bounced on his throat as he trotted across the grass, his blue eyes peering about diligently for the slightest flash of yellow feathers and his ears listening intently for a distant '_wark_.'

Cloud stopped moving for the third time in the last fifteen minutes and reached into the magic of the materia, releasing it without any sound or light, though a dizzying feeling swept over him as his body itself responded to the magic's sweet call. Nobody really knew just what sort of long-term effect might be wrought on a chocobo by using a chocobo lure – as far as Bill knew, there had never been another chocobo quite like Cloud and, excepting him, no non-human had ever used any sort of materia before – so it was perhaps something of a risk, but Cloud didn't mind much. The disorientation only arose the instant after he released the spell, and it faded quickly, perhaps as his body realized that the thing it wanted to go to was already right there. Besides, he had been using the materia for over a year now, and nothing bad or even overly interesting had happened to him.

Cloud heard something indistinct, distant, and he stretched his head upward and looked about carefully. Most of the hilly grassland was bare, though not far away he could see a copse of trees which would lead into the marshlands nearby. The sounds were coming from there, and they were quickly becoming more and more discernable. After just a few more moments, Cloud understood them to be a discordant group of chocobo voices yelling something akin to "_Help! Monster! Help!_"

"Figures," Cloud muttered, using human speech instead of trying to rely on the severely limited vocabulary of a chocobo. He half-spread his wings for balance as he reached up with one clawed foot to pop the lure materia out of the collar hung around his neck. With smooth, practiced motions, he transferred the materia from claws to beak, beak to a wide-mouthed pack strapped to his chest, and from that pack withdrew his only other materia orb, this one green, reversing his previous motions to put this new materia in the circular loop of metal laying against his neck. It clicked firmly into place; Cloud reached into the magic and was rewarded with the cool, sharp sensation of ice.

Then, all at once, a jostling, shrieking crowd of chocobos burst from the treeline, charging toward Cloud at speed, driven at once by the enticing call of the lure materia and by terror of what was following – an oversized swamp snake, at least nine feet long and therefore more than twice Cloud's four-and-a-half foot height, with glowing green eyes and dark scales.

Cloud crouched low, stretching his neck forward as his own eyes narrowed and focused. He concentrated, drew the planet's energy from the orb touching his feathers, and thrust it out into the physical world.

The snake screeched, flinched, and froze – literally – as its head and the upper half of its length was immediately encased in a cluster of giant blue ice crystals. The serpent's tail thrashed wildly. It was still alive.

Cloud dove between the still-panicked chocobos milling about where they had last felt the lure. Once clear of the frantic mob, he spread his wings and leaped upward, driving himself forward with all the force he could muster. The crystals were fading, the snake regaining movement, rising up tall and beginning to turn its head back toward the prey it had been pursuing. Cloud, with a loud cry, shifted in midair, tucking his wings in and extending a spread-clawed foot forward.

It connected solidly with the side of the snake's jaw with a massive cracking noise as the frosted scales split and the jawbone popped out of place. The serpent reeled back, hissing wildly. Cloud shifted his half-spread wings minutely as he fell to bring his talons into contact against the snake's long neck, scoring a series of long, deep gashes in the scaly hide.

Cloud hit the ground on his back, rolled, and crouched, ready with another Ice2 spell. The magic burst around the serpent's body again, spikes of ice driving into the dark scales and halting its frenzied movements. The snake had been writhing; it froze in an agonizingly twisted position, balanced precariously on the length of its tail.

The tail spasmed, flailing in shuddering loops and coils. Top-heavy and unbalanced by the sudden movement, the snake fell over sideways and the brittle thing snapped into pieces upon hitting the ground. The unfrozen bit still writhed, but it was all automatic muscle contraction now. The snake itself would not be getting up again.

Cloud forced himself to relax with a deep sigh. The rush of the fight was fading, and he realized that his foot was sore where it had connected with the snake's jaw. Testing it quickly, he found that he could still walk, though the trip back to Bill's would be uncomfortable. Perhaps he could hitch a ride on one of the full-grown yellows' backs.

He turned around and looked at the chocobos still huddled together not far away, still restlessly shifting and murmuring to each other. The snake was dead, but it would take them longer to recover from their fear than it took Cloud to recover from the adrenaline rush of battle and materia use. Wiping the snake's blood from his claws by digging them deep into the dirt, he made his way over to his fellow chocobos, moving carefully so they wouldn't bolt.

"_Safe,_" he promised softly in a heavily-accented _wark_. "_Monster gone. You safe now. Home. Follow me. We go home. Safe there, safe now…_"

"_Monster_," one of them wailed. The shifting grew more excited, until a chocobo at the edge of the group peered at Cloud and refuted the statement.

"_Funny-bird," _she announced. "_Not monster. Funny-bird. Kuraudo._"

Slowly, the group began to calm down. The chocobos parted slightly, turning their heads and bodies to better face Cloud, whom they all regarded as being somewhat odd for a chocobo and therefore knew as 'funny-bird.'

"_Funny-bird_," some of them agreed, nodding sagely as they did so. "_Kuraudo._"

Cloud nodded back.

"_Yes, me. Kuraudo. We go home. Home safe. Follow_."

Cloud turned in the direction of Bill's farm and started walking, trusting that the birds, worn out from the afternoon's adventure, would follow. Sure enough, each and every one of them did so, lured on by the promise of safety and by the first familiar thing they had seen, aside from each other, since they found the open gate and wandered out of the corral earlier.

It was getting late; the sun was slowly turning red and sinking nearer and nearer the horizon. Cloud glanced briefly westward to gauge the time better, hoping fervently that this would be the last group he had to bring back today. He hadn't done a head-count yet, but he didn't think there should be any more wandering loose, going by the number of chocobos already retrieved. Fifteen had gone missing; the first group he brought back had been two, Bill and the children had found four more, plus another group of three not long afterward. There had to be at least five chocobos following him at the moment, perhaps six, which would account for all of them.

The little chocobo continued onward doggedly, not daring to stop and count until they were safely through the corral gate again. If he paused, those following him could lose their focus and begin to wander once more, and he wasn't about to herd them back into place. Sore foot or not, now that he had begun the march, he had to see it through without stop.

He should've seen about that ride to begin with.

By the time Bill's farm came into view, Cloud was limping. He'd had worse; once, he managed to run afoul of a lizard-like monster while out on his own and had escaped with a bad gash down his leg. In comparison, the throbbing ache in his foot was infinitely bearable. All the same, he viewed the white stables and small farmhouse with profound relief, even managing to push himself for a bit more speed as they drew near.

"Home," he said happily, and then he cast the sentiment over his shoulder in the form of a chocobo's wark.

"_Home! Safe!_"

The chocobos took up the cry and pressed past him, rushing forward to the grain and water and shelter they knew the stables would provide. Cloud let them go; they wouldn't run off on their own now, not with night approaching and the familiar stalls they called their nests so close by.

As he finally drew near the stable doors himself, he found Bill standing outside of them, waiting for him. The old farmer greeted him with a friendly nod and a concerned frown.

"You're limping," he said. Cloud nodded back and hobbled into the stable, heading for his room at the far end. Bill fell into step beside him.

"They came across a snake, in the swamps. I think it was a zolom. I froze it and then kicked it, maybe too hard. Haven't checked it yet, though."

"I'll draw you some water and find a cure materia; I think we have one floating around somewhere," Bill offered, falling back to collect a bucket from the wide, open storage areas set in the middle of the stables. Cloud continued on to his own room to shuck his collar and pack, both of which he set as neatly as he could manage in the corner to the left of his nest-bed. The ice materia was still locked in place in the collar; Cloud didn't bother removing it, instead turning toward his sleeping area and climbing up to perch on the edge of the blanket-covered straw mound, stretching his hurt foot outwards to examine it.

The outer curve of his talons was slightly puffy and discolored by a bruise. It was this part, as Cloud discovered by flexing his foot, which caused him the most discomfort, though it certainly didn't seem to be anything serious.

"Anything broken?"

Cloud looked up to see Bill standing in his doorway with a tin wash-basin of steaming water hanging at his side and a green marble-like thing in his other hand.

"Nah," Cloud replied, holding up his foot for Bill to see. "Just bruised. Don't think I'll need the Cure for this. Thanks, though."

Bill nodded and tucked the materia orb back into a deep pocket of his overalls. Cloud liked that about Bill; the man always took him seriously. It seemed to take a little extra effort from time to time, and especially when he first came to the farm, but at least Bill never once tried to make Cloud conform to how a chocobo 'should' act, and so Cloud found himself with far more freedom than he really knew what to do with at first.

Bill set the basin down next to Cloud and steadied him as the chocobo perched one-footed on the rim and let the other leg dangle down to soak in the lovely warm water. He had little doubt that he looked ridiculous, but he couldn't bring himself to care one bit as the heat and liquid soothed the ache in his limb.

"Bandages?"

Cloud lifted his talon and peered at it, watching water run off of the purpling edge.

"Think it's a good idea?"

"It definitely won't hurt anything. When something swells like that, then you generally want to bandage it up tight and let it rest for a while. Might want one of the kids to get an ice pack together for it, too," Bill advised.

Cloud placed the limb back into the water and agreed. They sat in silence for a while longer, though Bill was no longer helping Cloud stay on the rim; the chocobo had slid fully into the miniature tub and now floated contentedly on the water's surface, toes scraping the bottom of the basin.

"Well," the old farmer sighed at last, leaning against the wall and putting his hands behind his graying head. "We got 'em all back, at least. Thanks, Cloud – you're a lifesaver. Literally."

"Just helping," Cloud said. He twisted his head around and started to fix the ruffled feathers along his right side to avoid having Bill see his face. The farmer couldn't read his moods the way Tifa had been able to, but the instinctive urge to hide embarrassment, no matter how meaningless it was, couldn't be denied through logic alone.

"It was a zolom, huh? How big, d'you figure?"

Cloud brought his head back out from under his wing and managed a shrug of sorts. "Twice my height. Nine feet, maybe. Ten at most."

"Dang. Those sizes're getting way too common. When I was a boy, a three-foot zolom would've been monstrous huge, and that's just forty years ago now. Lot more monsters in general, actually. I hear people're getting afraid to travel."

Cloud listened in silence. He was used to Bill using him as a sounding board for current events about the farm, about his family, about the world in general. It was as though the farmer, while making himself forget that Cloud was a chocobo, also managed to make himself forget that this chocobo was only about fourteen years old and as developmentally slow as the average human. As a result, Bill, in a sort of quest for someone understanding to talk to, tended to tell Cloud about things which he still sheltered his eleven-year-old grandchildren from. Scary things, like Shinra's war with Wutai, recently started; the ever-increasing number of monsters roaming the land; the worrying downwards trend that business was starting to take as people turned from using chocobos as a source of work and transportation to gradually-cheapening trucks, cars, even the rare public-transport airships.

"Not that I can blame them staying home," Bill acknowledged. "I'm getting a bit worried about things myself. Really need to start remembering to latch that gate. We got lucky this time. Next time, we might lose one of them, maybe more."

"We'll remind you," Cloud promised. "Me, Chloe, Billy. And I could try talking to them again."

"Don't they listen to you?"

Cloud shook his head.

"I'm too young-looking, for one thing. And I think I have an accent now, so I sound funny. And they think I'm weird. They call me _skrakkarickwar_."

"That means…?" Bill asked, sounding both amused and bemused at the same time, probably as he tried to puzzle out the scratchy sounds that just came out of Cloud's throat.

"Not right in a not-dangerous way chocobo. Funny-bird, I guess."

"Amazing. That's a lot of depth to their speech."

Cloud scoffed.

"Not really. They only have one way to say it, and it's only different from not-right-dangerous. Chocobo language is…slow. Simple. Not enough pieces for all ideas. Annoying."

"You _are_ a funny bird, though. Can't fault 'em for honesty."

"Guess not," Cloud agreed calmly. "They're still featherbrains, though."

The water in the tub-basin was cooling; it was probably time to get out. Cloud spread his wings, bobbed down so that his good foot touched the floor of the basin, and thrust upward, flapping quickly. Water sprayed in every direction, blasted into the air by the confusing combination of Cloud's violent upward motion and the downdraft his wings generated. He landed one-footed again on the tub's rim, keeping the other tucked up close against his body to avoid aggravating the bruise further, and wobbled there for a few moments.

"Steady, there!"

Bill reached out to help Cloud regain his balance, but the chocobo had already righted himself and was fluttering down to the floor to shake as much water from his feathers as he could with most of his weight on a single leg. Bill sat back for a moment, then, with a sigh and grunt, hefted himself to his own feet. Once standing, he caught sight of the leather-and-metal gear he had crafted for Cloud sitting in the opposite corner. As Cloud dried off and finished combing a few feathers that had shifted apart, Bill walked over to the corner and picked up the collar, checking it for tears or worn seams. The materia set in its center caught the light.

"I was gonna take care of that," Cloud said, noticing the green glint.

"Don't bother," the farmer replied, a little absently. "Actually, I want you to keep it."

Cloud shifted his head to the side and made a confused noise that was more chocobo than human. Bill understood, and he tapped the glassy, shining orb with one time-worn finger.

"Remember what I said? 'Bout the monsters out, and everything? Well, this is yours now, just in case."

"You don't have any other attack materia, though," Cloud argued, "so won't you need it?"

"Nah," said the farmer, bending over and replacing the collar, materia still attached, back on the floor. "I've always been a better touch with barriers and the chocobo lure myself, and Billy's not got the trick for materia. Chloe…I'm not too sure she'd be able to handle something like that in a fight. Girl's too much like me. _You_'ve pretty much proved you can manage the thing. So…"

Cloud blinked several times.

"Thanks," he said, unable to think of any other words.

The ice materia wasn't the first thing he had ever received from Bill, Billy, or Chloe. Over the past five years, they had made a point of giving him a small gift on the anniversary of the day he had come to live with them – his 'birthday,' for lack of a better term. The materia collar and pack had been his latest present, granted just last spring. Bill and the children had spent several days' worth of free time sewing leather and taking the materia ring from an old armband that a traveler out of gil had bartered for a large measure of greens. Even that, however, didn't quite measure up to being given a materia orb to call his own – Cloud knew a little bit of how rare they were, especially out here on the plains, away from any large mako fountains. The magical orbs were precious and often expensive.

Despite this, Bill waved Cloud off as though it was nothing, a mere daisy chain woven by Chloe, a trifle. The farmer hefted up the water bin and nodded toward Cloud's bed.

"Sit down. I'll get you those bandages."

Cloud obeyed and watched him leave, the stall door swinging free and wide open as always. The chocobo missed Mrs. Perry. He missed Tifa – so badly that it still hurt sometimes, especially in the dark of the night, half-asleep, trying to remember her exact scent or the feel of her hands patting his head feathers and finding the details starting to fuzz over. He even missed the mountain air of Nibelheim.

Still, despite this, Cloud could not deny his absolute good fortune at ending up with Bill and his family.

* * *

Cloud had seen a map of the world before. Its scale had boggled Cloud's mind, and he suspected that he still hadn't truly grasped it. On the page, the distance between the tiny dot that was Nibelheim and Bill's farm – which had been penciled in by the farmer himself – could be spanned by the length of Cloud's foot. In reality, he knew that it had taken five long, excruciating days of travel by machines built to go faster than even a chocobo's brisk, distance-eating trot.

On the map, Wutai was about as far away from the chocobo farm as it was possible to be, further even than Nibelheim. And yet, somehow, as months passed and stories of war rumbled through their world, Bill's chocobo farm found itself becoming more involved than the farmer himself could have expected.

The reason was simple: Wutai was a wild country, full of rugged mountains and thick forests. This was little trouble for helicopters and airships, of course, but trucks and other land vehicles often had problems, and the foot soldiers, despite crash courses in woodmanship and despite many of them coming from the more backwater towns of Gaia, were less than speedy in the rough terrain. This was especially troublesome when it came to scouting parties, groups which needed a quick way in and out of an area, to be able to flee if it came to trouble and report back to their commanders.

Midgar's solution was chocobos.

Bill's part to play was that of supplier and, quite often, a base point of sorts for training exercises which took place out in the fields and the swamps nearby. The good points of all of this were that there were noticeably fewer monsters wreaking havoc on them all and that Bill was making a good profit trading birds, supplies, and renting out the land he owned for the soldiers to pitch their tents during their longer periods of learning. The bad points were that, with ordinary humans with very fixed ideas about chocobos running in and out of the stables learning to care for their own assigned birds, Cloud had to hide his more incriminating possessions – three well-used books and his materia collar – under piles of straw, plus keep his stall door closed and latched for appearances.

The end result was that he was often bored, sometimes enough to perch on the built-in food trough, leaning the underside of his beak on the windowsill between wooden bars, and keep up a running commentary on the people outside well under his breath.

"Aaaaand there goes tiny-moustache again, forgot the feed I bet, yep, there it is…"

"No, baldy-you-idiot, don't comb her feathers _that_ way, _against_ the lie. Feels awful. Keep going, you're gonna get bit…heh. Told you."

"He's blowing out. Nice. Sure hope curly-hair checks the saddle again outside, or he could get a really interesting ride…"

Luckily, not many people paid much mind to Cloud, not even the official chocobo surveyors and purchasers from Midgar – much to Bill's great relief. Wartime required swift, well-built chocobos capable of carrying full-grown humans and their weapons for miles over difficult land. Cloud, not even five feet tall himself and therefore effectively leagues from the usual six, seven foot height from crown to ground, wouldn't even be _considered_ a potentially valuable addition. With his size, the golden feathers were nothing more than a pretty feature gone to waste, not the promise of vast maneuverability and power that they would have been on any normal chocobo.

With the soldiers passing through often too tired or disinterested to pay him any mind, Cloud soon found himself growing more and more careless with hiding. The truth was simply that he was tired of being just a chocobo; the openness he had lived under during the last five years now felt more comfortable than shying away, not allowing humans to glimpse anything _more_ about him. During the daytime, when whatever group currently training was away in the fields, Cloud would don his materia collar as a safety precaution, undo the latch, and trot out on his own for a breath of fresh air and complete freedom. In the evenings, when the soldiers only ventured as far into the stables as their own chocobo stalls before dragging themselves back out to their tents, Cloud pulled out a book – the Nibelheim fairy tales which were his favorite, the illustrated legends about the Lifestream and humans who heard the planet, the modern storybook about adventure and courage – and read until the dim light of the sinking sun faded away.

Then, one day, it happened.

Cloud hadn't felt like going out just yet, so he chose to reread the adventure stories again. The farm was quiet; the last group of chocobos and Shinra personnel had left three days ago. A new shipment of birds had arrived just yesterday; the soldiers were expected that very afternoon. It was a warmish, quiet sort of summer day, the kind that made you feel just a little lethargic and very, very content whether you were inside or out, as long as the sun could reach you somehow.

So when he heard trucks and lots of loud voices outside, Cloud ignored them. It was the same every time anyhow; they wouldn't enter the stables until evening, when they learned to put their chocobos away. First they had to get yelled at by someone Bill called a drill sergeant, or a commander, or some other sort of leader figure. Then they'd put tents up, be yelled at some more, get assigned to a chocobo and meet it, and then receive another loud speech before dinner and bed.

The shouting did get annoying, though, especially when he was trying to read. Cloud focused his mind on ignoring it in favor of re-living a journey through thick forest (which he thought probably wasn't as hard as the author made it out to be), and so he also missed the quiet clomping of boots as some stray fighter wandered up along the center of the stables, peering into stalls, scuffling through hay, and generally enjoying his own freedom.

When the boots finally stopped in front of Cloud's room, however, even the purposefully oblivious chocobo found it hard to miss the next sound that erupted into the air.

"HOLY CACTAURS!"

Cloud jumped, his head snapping up so quickly that it made him dizzy. A human boy with dark, spiky hair and bright violet eyes was staring at him through the door's window with a wide-open expression of dazed shock. Cloud was suddenly, vibrantly aware of the way he was crouched on the ground before the book, how one foot was carefully pinning it open on the floor, how his head must have been moving back and forth as he read one line at a time. How he was blatantly, _obviously_ reading. How chocobos, in general, _could not read_. And, on top of that, just how many ways it could potentially be a Very Bad Thing for him if the world knew just what he was.

Cloud didn't want to hide himself anymore, true. However, he also didn't want to end up some side-show freak in a zoo or a park or a city somewhere in the world just because he was a chocobo that could read and speak. Bill had impressed that point quite enough upon him, especially concerning his recent carelessness. Cloud was starting to wish he had listened a little better.

The boy held up his hands and backed away slowly.

"Stay – just stay right there – stay, good birdie – _Angeeeeeeeeeeeeeal! AAAANGEEEEEAAAAL!_ _Angeal, you_ _gotta see this!_"

As the boy raced out of the stables in search of this 'Angeal,' Cloud sprang into action. He slammed the book shut, not caring that stray wisps of hay got stuck between pages or that his talons had put a scratch down the soft cover, and buried it quickly. His heart was pounding high against his throat; he fluttered back and forth in the stall, not certain what to do but act natural, act natural, and that wouldn't work because _reading was acting natural for him_ and look where that got him…

His foot snagged the corner of the blanket that covered his straw nest-bed, and he dove on top of it. The loud, black-haired boy's voice was coming closer again, and this time, now that he was listening for it, Cloud could hear the sound of boots – one set light, quick, almost dancing, the other set heavy, solid, steady and evenly pacing forward. Cloud wriggled around in the bed so that his head was under his wing. Muffled in the darkness, he tried to slow his breathing, panting through an open beak.

"…and it had a book, and it was _reading _it!"

"Chocobos can't read, Zack," a deeper, older voice replied. Cloud thought it sounded rather exasperated. That was probably good; perhaps he wouldn't be caught out by this. The chocobo relaxed just a little bit.

"This one was, I swear it!" the young voice – Zack – declared. "I saw it moving its head back and forth along the page, there's no way…it…wasn't…"

Cloud heard their bootsteps stop; they were right outside his door. He fought to keep his breathing steady. A strange pressure was building up in his chest – he wanted to laugh or scream, to make some kind of noise because the sudden silence was too much, too heavy. He tried not to envision the spiky-haired Zack staring at him through the window, tried not to wonder about his expression.

"Well, Zack?" the deep voice finally asked, breaking the tense, waiting silence that had been crushing Cloud from the inside. The chocobo was deeply grateful. "Where is this…literate chocobo?"

"It…it was _right there!_ It must've…must've hidden it…oh, _Gaia_, I swear, Angeal, I'm not making this one up!"

"Zack…"

"It was this little paperback book about _this big_, and the chocobo was holding it down with his claws on the ground—"

"Zack."

"—it was _so not sleeping_ when I was in here two seconds ago, the little faker—"

"Zack!"

Zack shut up immediately. Cloud felt another inordinate urge to snicker, this time driven by relief instead of panic.

"This is not the time for practical jokes, Zack. I don't mind a sense of humor, but it is unacceptable right now. If you want to be a top SOLDIER, you need to show me that you can also be a responsible leader. If you're willing to try something so childish on me, I'm not sure I can trust you to take care of infantry who have no choice but to follow your orders. Am I clear, Zack?"

"But I—"

"Am. I. Clear?"

"Yessir," the boy replied quietly. Cloud heard Angeal sigh, then the heavy boots scraped against the stable's packed-earth floor and paced solidly away. Only when they had passed from hearing did Cloud risk tilting his wing to peek upwards at the door window.

Zack was staring intently right back.

"I know you aren't sleeping," the boy hissed before Cloud could put his wing back down. The chocobo thought for a moment. Then, moving deliberately slowly, he pulled his head out and did his best impression of a bleary-eyed bird, blinking innocently at the human outside and yawning widely.

Violet eyes narrowed, and Cloud's eyes smirked imperceptibly. It had been a long time since he had interacted much with anyone – Bill and the kids were kept pretty busy taking care of the other chocobos in the waves of activity which Shinra's business brought. Cloud had been bored, and this…this was actually rather fun.

"You feathered little rat. I know what I saw, you know."

Cloud cocked his head and issued the most innocent _wark_ he could manage. It was surprisingly easy to say "featherbrain" in chocobo in a kind, unassuming sort of tone.

"Don't you dare play that game with me. I'm Zack Fair, SOLDIER second class, and I'm not an idiot."

"_Featherbrain_," Cloud repeated happily, turning away to preen his wing feathers in an attempt to hide the way his sides shook with laughter.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, you spiky fluffball. Can't fool me – I'll show you!"

With that, Zack turned away and took off, running out of the stables again. Cloud kept picking at his feathers until he was far out of earshot. Then, the bird got up, jumped onto the food trough, and poked his head out of the window, scanning the inside of the stables carefully.

Empty. They were still shouting and bustling around outside, but for now, the inside was completely, thankfully, empty.

Cloud dropped back to the ground and started laughing. He sprawled on the ground, chuckled, howled, and giggled in a strange mixture of chocobo and human sounds. It was all of his fear, uncertainty, tension, and relief pouring out at once.

Really, he thought as he calmed down at last, really, the confrontation with Zack Fair hadn't been all _that_ funny. More alarming than anything, now that he actually thought about it. Still, it had been something new. There had been an element of risk there, and the elation of escape had been too much.

He really had to be more careful, though, Cloud realized, rolling off of his back at last and standing up again. That had been far, far too close.

* * *

Cloud didn't have much reading time anymore. He didn't dare pull out a book; Zack had apparently mastered the ability to move with near-silence through the stables and he had a most annoying tendency to pop up at any time. Normal rules didn't seem to apply to the boy; half the time, he was nowhere to be seen (or heard; he almost never stopped talking), out with the rest of the Shinra soldiers, learning to ride chocobos and fighting what wild monsters were left. Sometimes, however, Cloud would hear them all leave in the morning, but Zack would remain, creeping up to the stall door and staring at him intently, just waiting for Cloud to do something interesting. Cloud did all he could in these instances to make himself as boring as possible by trying to take a nap, or pacing aimlessly around the stall, lost in thought. Occasionally, Zack would talk to Cloud, waiting for a response. Cloud was careful not to give one, though he had to admit that he came to enjoy Zack's monologues. They were often entertaining, and it was hard not to laugh – something Cloud didn't doubt was intentional on Zack's part.

Bill had noticed, of course – as busy as he was, he knew when something was up.

"The young SOLDIER, Fair, asked about you today," Bill said quietly, doling out a scoop of greens and sneaking a biscuit into the mix. "Wanted to know when you were taken out and exercised and if he could do it. I fed 'im some pack of baloney about you being a family pet, runt of the clutch, and that you didn't need much runnin' about. Hey, Cloud, you're bein' careful, right?"

Cloud promised that he was, and that it was nothing to worry about, and could Bill maybe tell Zack that Cloud was allowed to run around the yard on his own normally? Bill already had; Cloud was clear to venture out safely the next day, but without his materia, and therefore not too far from the house, please and thanks. To better suit this white lie, Bill would deliberately leave his door open the next morning so Cloud wouldn't have to unlatch it himself.

Zack was gone that day; the day after, however, he trotted up to Cloud's open door after breakfast with a newspaper in his hand. Clout watched him carefully, curiously. This was something new.

"Mind if I come in?"

Cloud didn't bother responding in the least.

"I take it you don't, then."

Zack crossed the threshold, scraped some of the clean straw out of his way, and settled down against the wall, shaking the paper out to scan it. Cloud twitched a little, watching. He liked newspapers; the outside world was so wide and interesting, so _bizarre_, and the papers Bill used to occasionally share were as close as he could get to it for the time being. Unfortunately, with all the activity lately, he hadn't gotten to see anything new – Bill hadn't exactly approved of his reading sessions, warning Cloud often that it was a risk he was taking.

"Ah, here they are! Ever heard of the funny pages, Spike?"

Yes, and they weren't always that funny.

Zack folded the newspaper back and thrust it at Cloud. The chocobo threw a blank, casual glance at the black-and-white boxes, turned away in half-feigned disinterest, and paced away toward the opposite wall. Zack sighed behind him and the paper rustled further.

"Okay, okay, not that sort of reader, huh? So, what, the editorials? Lessee…_What Would Life Be Like Without Electricity?_ Man, this guy needs a better editor. That title sucks! Looks like the article sucks, too, actually. Um…sports…entertainment…you're not the morbid sort of chocobo who turns to the obituaries first, are you?"

Cloud ignored the teasing, inquiring violet eyes peering at him across the top of the newspaper. He was concentrating on acting as chocobo-like as possible, and it wasn't easy, especially when Zack was actually in the same room as he was. Somehow, it felt like Zack could see more of who Cloud really was when there was no wooden barrier between them, and while Zack seemed like a good enough kid, Cloud still remembered that his very first reaction upon seeing an unusual behavior was to go running to an authority figure. He couldn't trust a person like that until he could trust the world.

"Front page, then? _Midgar Times_, 'News from the City in the Sky.' Headline: _General Sephiroth Saves Thousands in War_. Now, he's awesome. Angeal's awesome, too, but the General…man, it's every SOLDIER's _dream_ to be like him. Here, lookit."

Cloud happened to be more-or-less facing Zack when the rustling paper caught his eye as the boy turned it around. He looked toward the movement in reflex, and the picture captured his attention immediately.

It was black and white, depicting a human standing so that his body faced partially away from the viewer, but his face was twisted more-or-less towards wherever the camera had been at the time. He was standing against a leafy background, and there had been some wind, since silvery strands of pale hair were being blown forwards. In his left fist, he gripped a katana so long that it ran off of the photograph's edge.

Cloud didn't notice any of this at first. Instead, he was completely and utterly stunned by the man's eyes. They seemed to stare solidly back at him, piercing, yet somehow blank. They weren't normal; the photograph was grainy, but even through that Cloud could see that the pupils were more catlike than any human's should be. The eyes, and the set of the face around them, were cold. Not cruel, not entirely unfeeling, but cold and utterly, terrifyingly powerful, and because of that, somehow lonely. Cloud's own thoughts confused him; he felt frightened, but at the same time the image made him deeply curious. Just what kind of human could look that way just in a picture?

The image moved sideways all of a sudden; Cloud flinched back automatically. It was only Zack, though, turning the paper back around. He was staring down at it with a kind of reverence.

"They say he's stronger than a hundred men," Zack said, "and that he can control massively powerful summon materia. And that nobody can wield Masamune like he can, and he's an absolutely _brilliant_ leader. Want to hear the story? I'll read this time."

If Cloud had even wanted to answer, he wouldn't have gotten a word out before Zack started to read. And if the reporter was being completely, totally honest, then Cloud soon had to admit to himself that he was impressed. Deeply.

This warrior had detected and thwarted an ambush against a supply convoy. He had taken a city with little loss of life. He had single-handedly held off a large number of Wutai troops when they attacked a Shinra encampment at night.

And, most recently, when his company had been crossing a rope bridge which spanned a deep ravine, Sephiroth discovered charges set beneath it and, working against time and in a dangerous position dangling above the ravine itself, had cut the explosives loose, preventing the deaths of all of the soldiers on the bridge at the time.

Cloud remembered his own encounter with a rope bridge. It wasn't set to blow up, and nobody had died, but he couldn't help the slightly irrational thought: if _he _had been observant enough, perhaps he might've seen the weakness there. Perhaps Tifa wouldn't have been hurt, and he would still be in Nibelheim.

Zack finished reading and instead stared somewhat smugly at the contemplative Cloud just opposite him.

"Y'know, we're leaving soon," he said. Cloud couldn't help looking up and meeting the SOLDIER's eyes.

"Day after tomorrow," Zack continued, nodding as though Cloud had asked him the question and he was answering. "Groups only get two weeks of chocobo training. Angeal dragged me out here for 'leadership and responsibility exercises,' and then we're going back to Midgar with the infantrymen. Bet you're gonna miss me."

Cloud turned away in feigned, chocobo-like disinterest. Zack just laughed a little.

"C'mon, Spike, how long're you gonna keep this up? Seriously. I _know_ I wasn't seeing things that day, and I figure if you can read then you can understand me."

Cloud stood up and shuffled over to his bed. Zack watched him eagerly, no doubt waiting for Cloud to pull aside the blanket and reveal some sort of secret, or kick aside the hay and confirm his suspicions. Instead, the chocobo flopped down and closed his eyes.

"…Spike?"

He ignored Zack, concentrating on breathing.

"Spike, you are so not sleeping. Again."

Inhale…exhale…

"Nothing drops off that fast!"

In…hale…ex…hale…

A deep sigh. Cloud almost stopped breathing, just to listen better. The newspaper was rustling again, and he could hear folds of fabric brushing against each other and the wall. A dry, hollow sort of _plap_ sound reached Cloud's ears, and bootsteps headed for the door.

"Fine, have it your way. I'll leave the paper there for you. Enjoy."

Cloud heard him leave, but he didn't move. He was too busy sorting through his own thoughts, and he came to believe that Zack was right about one thing, at least: Cloud would miss him. While Zack wasn't trusted, and therefore wasn't – couldn't be – a close friend, Cloud found him funny, entertaining, a good person to just be around. He was open and trusting – and those were the very traits that kept Cloud from revealing anything. Not every human being could be like that.

'_Chocobos don't read_.'

If he could be certain, Cloud thought, that Zack was capable of keeping a secret, then and only then would he entrust the boy with what could potentially be his freedom. Perhaps if he saw Zack again, after he had been given time to mature, after Cloud had done enough growing to definitely take care of himself – just in case – then, perhaps, he would see.

Cloud got up and wandered over to the paper, nudging it forward with his toe and staring at the bottom half of the front page.

Because, really, he wouldn't mind calling Zack a friend.


	13. And so the pieces set themselves

It was growing quickly – too quickly. Between It and her creation's ceaseless thirst for her own blood, she hardly had the strength left to observe what was and what could be anymore, even though very little time had passed – her current body had only passed around the bright star it called home twenty-five times since It was reborn in the powerful human which could be her downfall. Twenty-five of these circuits, when compared to the thousands she had already travelled, took a very short time, indeed. Yet even in that short time, she had weakened drastically.

The time was fast approaching. She couldn't be sure exactly when – having such a long view of the past made the future difficult to pin down accurately – but it would be soon. Much sooner than twenty-five cycles around her sun. Much sooner than half of that, even.

A wave of pain ran through her, and her spirit shuddered, though her body remained still, spinning steadily onward through dark space, rushing through time to the moment when her fate would ultimately be decided by either a single man imbued with and twisted by It or by a small group of souls scattered across her body's surface.

She saw the pain and terror approaching, the great destruction that could be brought about, and she wished that she could do more.

* * *

"I'm sorry. I wish I could do more, but…"

A wave of one big, dark brown hand, the motion attempting to clear any unspoken 'could haves' or 'would haves' out of the air.

"Ah, I know. It's fine, doc – you've done all you can. Thanks for that."

'Doc,' a wiry thin man with dark blonde hair and the sort of face which looked like it should be wearing glasses, shrugged on a patched coat and picked up his faded grey bag by the door. His motions were careful, almost weary; between a nasty cough going around town, two broken bones in the last week, and his current patient's powerful, persistent illness, he hadn't much time or energy to himself, and it was beginning to show.

"Just remember – as much of that tea as she's willing to drink each day, plus one pill every night before she goes to sleep. It'll at least help with the symptoms."

The other man – a massive being with dark skin and hair and a smooth-shaven face – nodded seriously, opening the rickety door for the doctor both out of courtesy and because one of the hinges had come loose again and the doctor didn't quite know the little trick to opening the thing. He would have to fix that…later.

"Yeah, I'll do that. Again, thanks."

The doctor nodded to him with a thin smile before he stepped out into the dusty, wind-blown street outside. The big man saw him off, then shut the door again. Leaving his hand on the doorknob, he leaned his broad forehead against smooth-sanded wood and heaved a deep sigh. The giant remained there for several long moments, eventually standing straight again and heading to the kitchen – a nook which contained an ancient oven-stove and an icebox – to prepare the tea which the doctor had prescribed. He had to make the leaves last as long as possible, so it was almost colorlessly thin, and they had no milk, but he sacrificed a little honey to sweeten the drink for his wife. She loved sweet things.

Pouring the steaming liquid from a battered kettle into an oversized mug, the man carried it across the small room to the only other door in the house. He knocked on that door far more delicately than one might expect, given the sheer size of his fists.

"Myrna? You awake, hon?"

A faint voice answered.

"Yes, Barret. You can come in."

Barret pushed the door open carefully. The room inside was dim, with a thick winter blanket covering the window in a makeshift curtain. Like everything else in the house, the furniture inside was worn but well-constructed and cared for, and so was in at least decent condition, though one certainly would not have found its like in the middle-class dwellings of Kalm or old-fashioned Nibelheim or, heaven forbid, the plates of Midgar. The dresser in the corner stood slightly unevenly on three good legs and one truncated one, and the posts of the large bed were sanded smooth but unvarnished.

And in that bed, laying with the blankets crunched and twisted up about her feet, was the most beautiful woman Barret knew – though he may have been a little bit biased, as Myrna _was_ his wife. She looked tired; there were faint circles under her eyes and her face had begun to take on the pale, slightly gaunt look of the long-time sick, but despite this Myrna retained some of her former robust prettiness, as well as a spark in her dark brown eyes. Sick or not, she wasn't someone who would go down easily.

"Hey," Barret said quietly, crossing the space in two large strides and placing the mug of tea on a hand-made side table. "You need to quit doin' that."

He quickly set to untangling the blankets and Myrna groaned.

"But it gets so _hot_ in here."

"Doctor's orders. Better to sweat the sickness out than chill yourself and make it worse."

With that, Barret tucked the coverings back over and around his wife. Myrna let him do it without further protest; they both knew that, consciously or not, the things would be kicked back down to the foot of the bed in another couple of hours anyhow. It was a cycle that had gone on for the past week as the illness burned in the core of Myrna's strong body.

Barret sat Myrna up against the headboard and handed her the steaming mug, which she took with a grateful smile. Barret sat down on the edge of the bed and watched her sip, waiting for her to bring up whatever was on her mind. Being cooped up inside had made Myrna more talkative than usual; Barret thought he could understand how she felt.

"How's Eleanor?"

"Doin' fine. Dyne said that she's probably got another month now…but you already knew that. Man's so excited I sometimes gotta wonder if he really knows which one of them's actually givin' birth."

Myrna laughed until it became a cough.

"Have they picked names yet?" she finally asked, calming herself and soothing her throat with another sip of tea.

"Yeah. Marcus if it's a boy, Marlene if it's a girl, and both if Eleanor manages twins."

"Good names," Myrna approved, "they're strong, in their own way, just like the parents. Wire-strong."

"Yeah," Barret agreed. They sat together in silence for several long, comfortable moments, content in one another's presence. Presently, however, Barret remembered a bit of news he wanted to share with his wife.

"Dyne agreed."

"Hmm?" Myrna looked up.

"The reactor. We're writin' up a petition and sendin' it in to Midgar tomorrow. If they accept it, it'll mean more jobs, more money flowin' through, a better life for everyone in North Corel."

Barret didn't voice it, but it could also mean more medicines available to the town, better business and therefore equipment for Doctor Morson. If Myrna ever got sick again, or if this illness persisted…if Eleanor or another woman got pregnant again in the future…perhaps they wouldn't have to worry quite so much.

"That's wonderful, Barret! Just don't put too much hope in Shinra's reactors, okay? Nobody knows how the future'll turn out. It might be just as good – or bad – as mining coal has been, you know."

"Naw." Barret bent forward and gave his wife a quick peck on the forehead. He took the empty mug from her and saw her settled back down on the mattress. "Trust me; this future'll be fine. You just work on gettin' better for now, right?"

"Right," Myrna replied, closing her eyes with a smile. "I'll do that. Night, love."

"Night," Barret replied, leaving the room and shutting the door behind him.

He and Dyne would petition Shinra to build a reactor in North Corel to take the place of the coal mines that were becoming less and less popular in the face of electric power. It would bring prosperity to the town. Life would improve. Barret was certain of this.

* * *

"Congratulations, Mr. Highwind: it's settled. You'll be the first man in space."

Cid grinned so widely he felt like his cheeks were about to tear apart, and even that wasn't enough to show the total elation swelling up in his chest. He grabbed the suited man's hand in his own and shook it firmly, ignoring the wince that flashed across the fellow's thick, pale face.

"I'm real honored," he said, making a small effort in his joy to use a slightly more formal mode of speech than was usual for him, "this is da—this is _amazing_!"

The Shinra politician gave him a plastic smile as he extracted his crushed hand from Cid's exuberant grip. He handed the rough pilot sitting opposite him a three-page form – already mostly filled out by his secretary using the applicant's given information – and a pen, hoping to get the deal finalized quickly; he had more work to do than a simple hiring process for Shinra's first astronaut, and he wanted to get it all over with. Cid Highwind, fortunately, didn't seem keen to linger; he flipped through the form at high speed and scrawled a messy, undulating line that passed as his signature on the last page.

"Now, understand that it will be some time before we can send you up," the politician warned, taking the form back and setting it to the side to be filed later. "The surveyors have picked a location for the launch – nice, quiet spot on the other continent – and we're working on the pad and rocket pieces right now. We're being careful with it, though, since it's dangerous stuff we're doing, and we want to get it all right. It could be half a year, perhaps longer."

"No problem," Cid replied, his grin still wrapped halfway around his face. "Just lemme know when you want me out there."

"We're aiming for mid-March 2003, but you are certainly welcome to come prior to that if you don't mind living for a time in the temporary lodgings that are being built for crew and technicians."

"Will do. Thanks again."

Cid stood up and nodded very politely, leaving the office. His entire being felt as light as air, as though he was flying through the atmosphere already; his feet certainly didn't feel like they were touching the ground. The blond man passed through cookie-cutter, brown-carpeted hallways almost without conscious thought, exiting the relatively small Shinra office building lost in his own world, far outside of this one.

He was brought back to earth by the violent honking of impatient motorists crowding the busy street before him. Cid snorted and dug about in the pocket of his best pants – worn especially for the strings of interviews and meetings he had gone through in the past week – for the cardboard packet that contained the means to his favorite occasional hobby: smoking. Finding his prize, the pilot lit one and tilted his head back to look up at the sky.

It was as gloomy as usual in Midgar, the air full of a haze of dust and smoke. Beyond that, however, he could tell that the sun was shining.

Cid missed the blue sky suddenly and acutely. Any vague thoughts he had of celebrating in Midgar itself fled immediately; instead, he wanted to go straight back to his tiny house on the outskirts of Kalm and spend the day outside being lazy and reveling in the happy feeling of watching all of his wildest dreams come true.

"See, pop?" Cid chuckled suddenly around his cigarette, "Wasn't such a crazy kid after all, was I? What I'd give t' see your face right now…"

With a jaunty tune in his mind and a spring in his step, the pilot-to-be-astronaut headed for the train station, feeling for all the world as though a pure blue sky was arched over him instead of the haze of Midgar, and that beyond that blue, the brilliance of the stars themselves was waiting for him.

* * *

It was late. Sunlight had vanished from the room's small window hours ago; the only light remaining was a strong lamp clamped over an ordered, pristine drafting desk. It created a single bright spot in the room, like a sun alone in space, reflecting off of pencils, triangles, T-squares, and other tools of their owner's trade. The owner himself sat in the hard wooden chair before this desk, bent over the drafted blueprints for yet another new mako reactor, double-checking measurements and notations. It was imperative that everything was accurate at this stage; any errors here could cause setbacks lasting months and costing money, and Reeve Tuesti was proud enough in his meticulous work that the setbacks would also be an embarrassment to himself.

Finally satisfied, the young man leaned back and rubbed his face with a deep exhale, glancing at a clock for the time. Eleven-thirty; he wouldn't be ready to sleep until twelve at least. Reeve always had been a bit of a night owl; when he was a child, his mother often found him camped out under his covers with a flashlight and a book, regardless of how early he would have to rise the next day for school.

For a moment, Reeve considered getting started on the next project his department had lined up: a new reactor to be built in a tiny town called Corel. He soon dismissed the idea, however; the preliminary survey was rough, not yet detailed enough to give him a very good idea of how the land lay around the site. Even starting a rough sketch at this point could fix a form in his mind that would prove inadvisable later on, forcing him to start over from scratch again.

Instead, he cleared his work from the drafting desk, winched the tilted surface back to the horizontal, and dragged a cardboard box out from beneath it. From that box, he carefully lifted a mass of metal parts and nests of wire, small bolts of black and white furred material, and a toolbox. These he laid out across his desk surface in a particular order before bending over the wire mass and setting to work again.

Slowly, the metal form took shape. Reeve worked meticulously, connecting wires, tightening screws, fastening bolts. He attached the tiny voicebox he had programmed the previous week with a highland accent – in honor of a departed friend of the family – to the wires that ran up the flexible links of metal that formed an animal-like spine in the midst of the mess.

Building robots which could think and speak on their own was his hobby and gift. Reeve didn't know how he did it himself; what he managed was less artificial intelligence and more actual life, though he never deluded himself into thinking himself equal to whatever force which made human souls. His gift was far more simplistic. All the same, at times Reeve flattered himself with the vague notion that maybe, just maybe, sometime in the far-flung past a single Ancient married one of his human ancestors, leaving a trace of magic to flow down the ages. In truth, it was the only explanation he could imagine for his ability.

It was a dangerous explanation, though. Reeve had never met the man, but rumor in the company had it that Professor Hojo, one of Shinra's lead scientists, was obsessed with Ancients and had always wanted to study them. Rumor also had it that he possessed no morals whatsoever, and that most of his experiments were only just on the right side of legal, never mind humane. It was for that reason that Reeve kept his apparent life-giving ability with robots a close secret.

That, and it was, in the end, just a hobby. He wouldn't want to make it a career, especially for Shinra. The company was far too militaristic.

Reeve began to run wires along the sturdy fingers of one paw-like hand, adding pads to create a rough sense of touch. Taking his mind off of Shinra at last, he sank into his work, feeling a hypnotizing calm wash over him. The feeling seemed to flow down into the metal bones and wire nerves he was working over; the flexible tail gave a sudden twitch of its own accord.

"Steady there," the young man hummed soothingly, "You're not done yet. Sleep a while longer, all right?"

The unfinished robot gave Reeve no response – whatever spirit had reached the thing seemed to have left it, or at least become dormant as Reeve asked.

Time ticked on, and in that small apartment room the slow act of building a new creature progressed.

* * *

The world's greatest ninja lived in Wutai. Everyone knew about her, though few had ever seen her – she was too good a ninja to just be _seen_ by _anybody_, after all – and those few all agreed that she was the most perfect ninja to grace the face of the planet. Or they would, if those few existed.

Pause. Back a bit. It's supposed to be that _nobody_ had ever seen her, but _if_ they had, they would definitely agree that she was perfect. Yeah, that's it.

The world's greatest ninja. Gorgeous black hair cut rebelliously (and stylishly) short, sparkling brown eyes, a small, lithe body just built for ninja-ing. Wutai's pride and joy, the princess of the mighty realm, able to hide in the shadow cast by a piece of string, silent as a flower, stealthy as a fox…

This ninja's name was –

"Hey, brat! Get away from there!"

A large, pale hand clamped down over the girl's tiny shoulder, dragging her out from behind a large, potted shrub just to one side of the ornate white gate. The girl cursed in Wutaian and swatted the blue-uniformed arm away.

"Hand off me!" she demanded angrily, speaking Midgar's Continental language to the best of her ability. The man – twice her height, broad-chested, with a huge blonde moustache and short hair hidden under a snazzy blue cap – glared down at her like a disapproving stone statue of one of the ancient gods her old man was always on about. Yuffie crossed her arms and stared right back, willing him to back down and let her do what she liked.

She _knew_ she should've tried tunneling in during the night instead of attempting a daytime materia raid. Stupid guard of a stupid high-rate Midgarian tourist's getaway. Stupid Shinra and their stupid war.

"Go on, get outta here," the guard said, flapping a huge hand in Yuffie's direction, like an old woman trying to shoo off a cat, she thought.

"Make me," she shot back, thinking she made it sound rather impressive this time.

"I don't need to explain to my boss why I beat up a little kid, so do us both a favor and scram."

"Ah-hah! Scared!" Yuffie said in Continental, wearing a big grin. She had a lot more she wanted to say, but she lacked the vocabulary for it in anything but Wutaian. The last time she got into a shouting match with some Midgar-born brute, he'd become disappointingly confused, not at all impressed by her articulate mixture of Wutaian and Continental insults. Waste of time, these lumps.

"In your dreams, kid. Skedaddle."

With that, the big man grabbed her shoulder between his thumb and forefinger and whirled her around.

"Hand _off_!" Yuffie shouted again, slipping out of the man's grip and darting back to drive a quick elbow into his gut. He grunted, reaching for her in reflex, but Yuffie was already running away across gravel pathways and clipped grass, heading toward the thick forest that still sprawled across the land despite Shinra's best efforts at 'cultivating' the area. Once under the cover of the trees, Yuffie's run dropped to a trot, then a walk, then, at last, a cocky saunter that matched the grin on her face. Dragging a hand from the pocket of her shorts, the eleven-year-old girl unfolded her fingers to admire the green orb she had swiped off of the guard.

Fire, level two. Not too shabby. Too bad any insults she could have hurled back as she ran would have been lost on the guy; she probably should learn to speak their language fluently just so she could have that bit of fun.

Yuffie stuffed the materia back into her pocket and hummed a little tune to herself.

Where had she been again?

Oh, yes.

The greatest ninja in the world…

* * *

Bugenhagen was no Ancient.

One didn't have to be to hear at least a little of what the planet was saying, he believed. One could be perfectly, completely, mundanely human, but with an open heart, a clear mind, and a location where the planet's lifeblood flowed just a little nearer the surface than usual, it was possible, sometimes, to hear vague little whispers in the wind, to feel the shifting of the earth and the emotions it conveyed.

Of course, most of his former contemporaries in Shinra would have called it little more than the effects of senility. Bugenhagen knew better, though; his mind was sharper than most of theirs would be by this time, his memories of the past were clear, and his reasoning and intellect unmuffled by the years. His body may be slowing, forcing him to use a specially-made levitation ball half the time, but his brain was as strong as ever.

Stronger, in fact.

He could feel her unease. Something was wrong with the world, very wrong. It was more a hunch on his part than anything he gleaned from the planet, but Bugenhagen thought that Shinra, if it wasn't at the very bottom of this problem, at least had a helping hand in it. Foolish, greedy people; they had not believed him when he first warned that drawing mako for power could have adverse effects on the ecology – as he had so loftily worded it so long ago – and they would continue to ignore any evidence or arguments shoved their way.

Bugenhagen tensed a little, sensing something like pain arising from the earth he was sitting, cross-legged, upon. It was vague, and it could have been anything from a pinprick to sheer agony for the planet itself, as Bugenhagen wasn't attuned enough to tell; after all, for all his meditation and open-mindedness, he was still only human.

He patted the earth with a gentle, open palm, the way he would pat one of the cubs on the head after a nightmare. He wondered if she could feel it, or if she even cared that a single old man in a dusty stretch of canyon wished to comfort her in any feeble way he could. For it _was _feeble, the pat, the offering of sympathy, like a child clumsily stroking its distressed mother's hair. At best, it could impart only a smile on the mother's face for the child's sake, not real comfort. Then again, maybe a smile would be enough.

Bugenhagen was just beginning to meditate on the nature of smiles and how the earth would go about one when a pair of young voices – one laughing joyfully, the other yelling in annoyance – rose from below the cliff he was sitting on. Packing the question away in his mind for later thought, the old man rose stiffly, with the aid of a rough-hewn, smooth-polished walking stick, and peered over the cliff's edge. There, below him, were the last two cubs of a proud species, and they were fighting. Again.

Bugenhagen sighed and shook his head. Their voices drifted up to him – not that he needed them, as he could guess at much of their conversation already. The same one had repeated itself, with minor differences each time, for the past year. He stepped back from the cliff's edge and closed his eyes, simply listening.

"Get _off_, Deneh!"

"But that's no fun! C'mon, Nanaki, play a little!"

"I've told you – AH! My ear!"

"Sorry…"

"_Off!_"

"Does this mean I win again?"

"I'm not playing, so there is no winner."

"You used to be fun, you know."

"Deneh, we aren't babies any more. We're too old for playing. In just four years…"

"I know, I know. The ritual."

"Right. And then we'll be warriors."

"And we definitely won't have time to play, so we should get as much done as we can right now. Really, Nanaki, quit pretending to be so serious and grown-up. Like you said, we only have four years left."

"There's nothing wrong with being serious…"

Bugenhagen turned around and hobbled across the flat, dusty stone to the wide-stepped staircase cut into the rock itself. As he moved from bright sunlight into the cool shadows cast by high cliff faces and time-worn rock formations, the cubs' voices faded from his hearing, continuing on in yet another argument over the same issues.

Nanaki wanted so badly to grow up. He believed Seto a coward and wished only to make up for this terrible fault. Bugenhagen would let him try; the child would not be able to appreciate his father's sacrifice until he learned a little more of what it meant to be a warrior of Cosmo Canyon. After the ritual, Bugenhagen promised Nanaki silently. After the ritual, and then only if the flame of courage in his heart shows promise to match the flame that would be set in the warrior's tail, he would reveal the truth.

Deneh, on the other hand, wished only to be carefree, a child for as long as possible. She had no deep dreams of courage and honor, no dark fears of cowardice and ridicule. The female cub lacked the maturity to be a leader to match Nanaki. She was overconfident, reckless; Bugenhagen could not help her overcome this any more than he could convince Nanaki of Seto's reasons for leaving before the child was ready to understand.

The last two beings of a once-mighty race, Bugenhagen reflected. One too doubtful, too focused on the past, too full of affected seriousness. The other too confident, too focused on the immediate, too careless. Neither one had the right mindset just yet; neither one could sense the planet's pain, her fear, the quivering tension hidden deep, deep in the wind, water, and earth, like a feeling in the air before an approaching thunderstorm. Both of them had a lot of growing up to do.

Bugenhagen ran a weathered hand against cool, shadowed rock as he descended the stairs carefully.

He feared that they might not have much time before the lightning, whatever it may be, finally struck.

* * *

Midgar was poisoned. The land around it for miles was a rocky desert where nothing grew, and what little soil still existed inside the city, beneath all the concrete and iron, could accurately be described as barren. All of the city's food had to be ordered from outside and shipped in. The earth itself was dead, with a single, remarkable exception.

Deep in the sector five slums there was a church, built of wood and stone instead of iron and concrete. A little of its roof was missing, as were a great deal of its floorboards, right about where the pulpit might have been for the priest or priestess of some ancient religion could have spoken of faith and perhaps even conducted rituals. Nobody attended that church anymore; in truth, the fact that it was still standing could almost be considered a miracle due to Shinra's nearly complete disregard to what happened below the plates.

Nobody attended the church, but one girl in particular went there often to attend the flowers. Because somehow, in a poisoned city on murdered earth, there was just enough life left in this one, sunny spot to allow yellow and white lilies to grow.

Aerith Gainsborough knelt among these flowers, pinching off deadened leaves and carefully removing the blossoms she would sell that day. At first the act of clipping the flowers away saddened her, as it had left the flowerbed looking terribly barren and empty. In time, however, she found that these lilies could grow back from the cut and that they could do so a bit more quickly than she suspected most flowers could manage. Aerith almost thought that they did it to make her happy. They seemed to do a lot of things for no other reason than that.

A soft scraping sound, like metal on wood, drew her attention from the dark earth beneath her to the rafters above. Perched high on one of them was the robotic-like creature with two brilliant white wings. It had been resting, but now it sat up with its expressionless face turned toward her. Aerith smiled brightly up at it.

"Good morning, Guardian. Sleep well?"

The Guardian's tail flicked back and forth twice over the rafter's edge, and then it turned to look toward the church's doors, waiting expectantly. Aerith also looked toward them, her smile still lighting her face as one hand reached up to tug quickly at the pink ribbon in her hair. She knew who the Guardian heard or sensed coming.

Seconds later, Zack Fair stepped into the church. Aerith stood up to greet him.

"Hello!"

"Hey, Aerith," he replied, just as cheerfully as she greeted him. His heavy boots clomped against the floorboards noisily. "I've got the day free, so I thought I'd come visit."

"That's sweet of you. Want to help me sell my flowers?"

"Sure!"

Aerith gathered the flowers she had cut and set them in a round, handle-less straw basket she and Zack had salvaged from a tiny pawnshop nearby. After the various fiascos involving wagons, they had decided that a basket, while a little more bothersome because it had to be carried, was a much safer, more practical route. They hadn't managed to find one with a handle, unfortunately, but at least it was better than an old baby carriage or a cart that could be mistaken for illegal weaponry.

"Here, you carry this," she said, pushing the basket into his arms.

"But _Aerith_," he protested. "I don't—"

"Don't worry; they won't bite."

"It's not that! It's just…they'd look a lot prettier with you carrying them. Plus, I need my arms free to protect you," Zack said smoothly. Aerith laughed at him, but took the basket back anyhow.

"Knowing you, you'd trip and squash them," she teased as they headed out the door. Zack protested weakly but didn't stop following her, still as much a lovestruck puppy as ever. The Guardian watched them go, and even though he was a clone, a mere copy of another being tasked with nothing more than watching over them and keeping them safe, he felt something warm in the depths of his hollow chest.

For now, life was good to them, and that was all he needed.

* * *

Zack Fair, SOLDIER First Class, had always wanted to be the best of the best. His promotion had excited him far more thoroughly than any sugary drink ever could have.

That was before he knew about the workload.

First Class didn't deal in grunt work unless it was absolutely necessary, so at least that was out, but that also meant that they got all the high-priority stuff, the things that couldn't be blown off or procrastinated on. And then there was the paperwork.

Oh, Gaia, the paperwork.

Secretaries and desk clerks took care of the mundane stuff – squad transfers, minor promotions and demotions, small assignments – but First Class also had its share of paper pushing to do. Shinra was a big company, after all, and this somehow made it imperative that every little thing be committed to paper and filed away somewhere. Reports had to be written, both on his own missions and on missions he led or supervised, and Gaia help him when the Second and Third Class groups came around for evaluations every few months.

In short, ever since his promotion, Zack Fair had been a very, very busy guy. Too busy to visit his family, even – a trip to Gongaga would take days he didn't have, and he was rarely in the area. As such, he was definitely too busy to visit a chocobo on Bill's Ranch, even though said chocobo certainly hadn't been forgotten, either.

Zack knew he saw Spike reading. After Angeal, though, he wondered if he might also know why the bird had hidden it. If Angeal and Genesis could call themselves monsters because of some wings, could a chocobo be called a monster – unnatural, at least – because it was intelligent? Granted, the explanation didn't make much sense to Zack, but at least it was something. He could respect it, too, even though he couldn't fully understand it. If he ever managed to see Spike again, he'd be sure to let him know that.

_Not that it's likely to happen any time soon_, he realized with a sigh as his phone rang with orders to show up for a new mission briefing – this one to some tiny town on the other side of the world.

_If it happened at all_.

* * *

The years had done little to change Nibelheim. The houses, the weather, the mountain, everything about it seemed to stand in defiance to time. The biggest differences between the current Nibelheim and the one of just seven years ago could be summed up in the physical states of the humans living there. The children were now teenagers; the Johnsons had a three-year-old boy toddling around their house; Mrs. Perry had passed on quietly just a couple of years ago, in her sleep, with a small smile on her face and a worn feather folded into her palm; a travelling martial arts master had appeared in town not long after, was given her old (and empty) house to live in and a small group of new students to train, and Tifa Lockhart was his best.

At first, Tifa had been rather quiet and withdrawn. At eight years of age, she had fallen into a week-long coma, and had woken up to find her closest friend gone, leaving behind only a feather and a promise, relayed to her by Mrs. Perry, to return someday. Tifa had known even then that he hadn't left entirely of his own accord – he had been forced. It was rather obvious who had done the forcing, too, given that Mr. Lockhart had gone so far as to dismantle Cloud's shed-room outside, leaving only a rectangular patch of paint on the outside wall that was slightly darker than the rest as proof of the structure's existence. And there was nothing Tifa could do but go on with life.

She had done so, but she had never been quite as happy as she once was, nor quite as curious or willing to learn new things.

Then Zangan came. He offered to teach the young teens of the town how to defend themselves against monsters in return for room and board for a while. He looked at Tifa and saw something beneath the lonely girl that the rest of Nibelheim had long ago accepted she had become – he saw a true warrior with a great capacity to love others and great potential to fight for that love. He saw the small, golden feather hanging like a charm on a cord around her neck, pieced together its story from bits of information he heard, observed, and learned without asking, and realized that this was someone who could hold onto a friend in her heart even when that friend had vanished for years on end. Someone who would not abandon a comrade. Someone with hidden strength.

And so he proposed to the mayor that Tifa join his lessons, craftily guiding the conversation to convince the man that it was entirely his decision and that Tifa would certainly benefit from it – not a lie, as Zangan could feel instinctively that the girl had too much of a spark inside of her to stay in Nibelheim all her life, and it was a big, wild world out there. Mr. Lockhart resisted at first, but agreed in the end, and so Tifa became one of Zangan's regular students. She caught on quickly, seeming to find new life in learning how to protect herself and others. Zangan used his words more than he used his fists on his students, Tifa especially – he slowly learned of Cloud from her own mouth and mind, of the accident that had driven him away to begin with, of her certainty that he would come back. He suspected that there was rather more to this chocobo than the norm, though it didn't surprise him, and he didn't push the issue.

Instead, Zangan used metaphors, riddles, and fable-like stories to convince Tifa of her potential ability to protect others and fight like the best, and soon enough the girl responded. She went from being the mayor's daughter, just another kid in Zangan's basic lessons, to being Zangan's personal student, the only one learning advanced techniques from him. She regained a spirit of adventure while learning how to leap up and kick a target standing six feet off of the ground; at fourteen, she stopped standing in her father's protective shadow and began to volunteer to guide the odd group of travelers through the mountains, much to the older man's protests.

He couldn't stop her, though. Zangan had pulled her true character forward and set her choices out clearly, and now Tifa was a strong, willful teenage girl with fists powerful enough to match her heart.

And through it all – the training, the fighting, the struggle to create herself – a tiny gold feather, the shaft glued to a metal bead welded to a small silver loop threaded on a simple cord, swung from its place around her neck and reminded her of a promise someone had made for her – to come back – and a promise she had made silently in return – she would be ready, and she would be strong.

* * *

Something had changed, and Bill thought he knew just what that something meant. It meant that Cloud was growing up, and it meant that soon enough, he would vanish.

It started somewhere between Cloud's unofficial fifteenth birthday and his sixteenth with the chocobo starting to spend more and more time outside the bounds of the farm, roaming the wide, empty fields with his materia collar on for safety. Soon enough, he was leaving at dawn and returning late in the evening, having spent the day learning to fend for himself in the wilderness, finding his own lunch and, with increasing frequency right around his sixteenth birthday, his own breakfast and supper as well. He still helped with what chores he could, and he never acted any differently around Bill and the kids, but during that last year, it had become very obvious to the old farmer that this strange chocobo would soon be leaving the figurative nest.

And so he prepared, carefully and quietly. He had Chloe, who could work leather like a master, sew a new, larger pack for Cloud, one with space for a few personal belongings and some packets of food should his foraging come up scarce. Billy helped her, estimating measurements and scrounging through every metal buckle, latch, snap, and button they owned to find just the right fasteners for it. Bill fidgeted a little with the monthly budget, sold a few chocobos for a bit more than usual, and got lucky when a traveler had a spare healing materia he was willing to barter.

Cloud, away from the farm so often and for so long, had no idea until one morning in the middle of September, when he finally made his decision and knocked on the farmhouse door. Bill opened it and for a long moment, the two stood still, simply looking at each other. One knew what he wanted, but not what to say; the other was simply willing to wait.

"I made a promise, a long time ago," Cloud said at long last. He couldn't meet Bill's eyes, but he saw the farmer nod solemnly.

"I understand. Time to keep it, huh?"

"Yeah. I think I'm ready now."

Bill looked over the chocobo, standing before him on the old wooden porch of the house. He had grown more, and was pushing five and a half feet at last – still short for a chocobo, but definitely matured compared to the tiny three-foot-tall chick he had been when Bill first met him. There was nothing weak or unhealthy about him, and his eyes, though they avoided Bill's, were strong.

The farmer had to agree; it was time, and he was ready.

"Wait here," he said, turning around and entering the house again. Cloud looked after him curiously, surprised when he came out with Chloe and Billy, the former carrying a strange brown bundle.

Chloe stepped forward first, tucking her bundle under her arm as she did so.

"Hold still," the fourteen-year-old said, unclipping the straps of Cloud's pack from around his neck and under his wings. The reason for her actions became clear when she unrolled Cloud's new pack and slipped it on, fastening it with a simple latch that even Cloud's beak could manage.

"Chloe…you…?"

"Me and Billy, yeah," the little girl murmured quietly, tucking Cloud's thin books into the pack along with a map of the world and a compass. She kept her head down, trying not to cry, so it was a surprise when gold feathers moved across the edges of her vision and around her back. Cloud pressed her against his chest, pack and all, in the best imitation of a human hug he could give.

"Thanks, Chloe."

He released her, and she backed away, sniffling and rubbing at the tears rolling down her cheeks.

"There's some extra food in there," Billy said helpfully. "And it's waterproof, so stuff should stay safe while you're over the ocean, unless you dunk it completely under or something."

"I'll be careful," Cloud promised, stepping forward and dragging the boy into his own hug. Billy only gave a weak, token protest, ultimately allowing the gesture. He seemed as close to tears as his sister when Cloud let him go.

Then it was Bill's turn. The farmer cleared his throat and stuck his hands deep into his pockets.

"It's been great havin' you, Cloud," he said seriously. "And wherever you go and however long you're gone, you remember that you're part of the family. All right?"

"All right," Cloud choked out, and then all Bill could see for several long moments were golden feathers. He coughed again, and Cloud backed away.

"Here. Want you to have this."

The farmer thrust his hand out toward Cloud. Nestled in his palm was a green materia orb. Cloud reached up with his right talon and took it, probing it quickly with his mind. Warm energy, not for fighting but instead for…

"Healing?"

"We ain't gonna be there to patch you up after you get into a scrap, you know," Bill joked lightly. "So you get that. Keep track of it, okay? And don't use it too often, because if you do, that means you're not fightin' right."

"I'll keep that in mind," Cloud promised, tucking the materia into his new pack and snapping it shut across the top. "Thank you all. I'll come back again, I swear."

"See you then," Bill said, nodding decisively.

Cloud took a deep breath, turned around, and trotted across the yard, knowing that it could be the last time for a long time. He waited until he was over the borders of Bill's property before breaking into a run and spreading his large, well-feathered wings. Several flaps later, and the golden bird rose into the air, flying away toward his former home at last.

He would arrive in Nibelheim on the first of October, the day that the planet might have marked the beginning of her possible end.


	14. Night Terrors

**A/N: **First off, an apology. I made a mistake in my research, one which a few of you pointed out in your reviews in the last chapter: I had read in the Final Fantasy Wiki that golden chocobos could fly. They can in some games, _but_ _not in FFVII_.

I will not be changing this in this fic, however. Cloud's ability to fly as a golden chocobo has already been made into a small, but fairly key part in his character and choices made. Notice when Tifa and Cloud fell in the mountain that he tried to catch her and fly with her – and he failed. Notice how long he's waited to return: he wanted to make sure that not only could he take care of himself if need be but also that he'd grown big enough, strong enough, to fly successfully, even bearing the weight of a human. I've already worked the thread in, and I won't try to pull it out now.

For that reason, I ask that you accept this slight change to the canon world, as you seem to have accepted the error I made with the ages of Billy and Chloe (who were small children when Cloud was twenty-one and could not, therefore, be only a few years younger than him).

Thank you, everyone.

* * *

The dim, sunset-colored ground flashed by beneath him, changing in hue as he passed over patches of grass and dusty rock, farmland and untamed forest. The wind was a constant rush in his face, ruffling his crest until it stuck out more wildly than usual, drying his blue eyes and forcing him to blink constantly as he kept his sight trained on the mountain range growing ever larger before him and beside him. He knew those mountains, despite the fact that he hadn't seen them in nearly seven years. He knew because he had been keeping careful track of his progress across land and sea, and these hills were right where they should have been. And it might've been his imagination, but he could swear that something in him called out to them, telling him he was _home, nearly home_.

Funny, how 'home' now referred to two very different places…

Cloud pumped his huge wings twice and shook his head briefly. He didn't laugh or shout; he was already verging on breathless just from the effort of keeping himself in the air for the last two hours. Flying was hard work, and part of the reason he had taken almost a week just to get this far was the number of rest stops he had to make, not to mention the periods of time when he trotted along the ground just to give his aching wings a break. These delays bothered him; he had to work hard to convince himself that they made little difference in the long run, that Nibelheim wasn't going anywhere, and that it would be worse if he injured himself by pushing his limits too far.

Still, every time he imagined Tifa's face and their coming reunion, it was hard to keep an even, steady pace. His thoughts would begin to race on ahead, and his wings would tremble in their effort to keep up. _Would Tifa have changed_? _Would she recognize him_? _Would she even _remember_ him? Would she be happy to see him?_ On and on, all the while his wings strained against the thin air and he breathed to the constant rhythm of _almost home, almost home_.

The sun dropped further below the ever-distant horizon, and Mt. Nibel drew closer. Cloud almost fancied he could see the pale ribbon of a road winding up the mountainside, the road that led to his hometown. It was hard to be sure, though; the red sunset cast long shadows and made it difficult to see small details in the landscape. Instead of searching for a narrow dirt road, Cloud thought, lifting his head, he should look for the yellow glow of lights in windows and the sharp smell of chimney smoke.

In moments, he sensed both. His joy lent him further speed, but soon enough he became worried instead. Was it his imagination, or was there a little too _much_ light for a few open windows in a small mountain town? Wasn't it a little redder than it should have been? And the smoke he smelled was wrong, too…thick and choking, with a sickening under-scent that lingered in his throat and against his tongue.

The wind shifted direction, blowing straight across Cloud's face and carrying with it a black flume of smoke and pale ash. Cloud coughed and squeezed his burning eyes shut, his wings faltering. He dropped several feet before he could recover in flight, then dropped several more to get out of the worst of the smoke. Blinking his blue eyes rapidly to clear them, Cloud peered through the haze. Everything was lit red and orange, a violent light that flickered rapidly, constantly shifting against the blackened sky. They were sunset colors, but the sun was barely a sliver in the distance now, and its light was sure and steady besides. It moved like the light of a bonfire, but the controlled blazes Cloud remembered never cast so much smoke into the sky, nor was their light so bright and far-spread.

The answer hit Cloud like a blow to the chest.

Nibelheim itself was burning.

Cloud's wings ached as though they had caught flame themselves, but he forced them on, thrusting himself through the air desperately. The air became warmer; updrafts pressed without warning against the undersides of Cloud's wings. The open entrance to the town proper came into view, still whole even though almost every building beyond it was alight in some way, and Cloud dove through, hitting the ground in a stumbling run. He looked around frantically; the snapping roar of fire mixing with faint human cries made his head buzz.

"Tifa! TIFA!" he shouted. There was no answer. Cloud started in the direction of the Lockhart house, but he barely ran five blind steps when he nearly tripped over something both soft and very solid. To his horror, it was a human body – he vaguely recognized the face as that of the neighbor, Mr. Johnson, though it was twisted in fear and pain – all bloody and torn across the chest. Cloud choked and stumbled back. Fire seemed to surround him, threatening him, hiding something even more dangerous, a monster perhaps…

Cloud wheeled around and shot toward the Lockharts' home, mindlessly dodging or leaping over any uneven or darkened patch on the ground, not letting himself stop to see if it was an innocent, burnt-out piece of timber or another person torn open by some unknown threat. He wouldn't let himself imagine Tifa or Mrs. Perry in their place. He wouldn't let himself imagine what he might do if he did see their faces staring blankly at the smoke-filled sky.

He wouldn't…let…

The Lockhart home was completely ablaze. Half of the roof had caved in, and as Cloud skidded to a stop outside of it, the other half groaned and slowly crumpled as well.

"TIFA!"

As he set himself to charge forward, a hand was suddenly laid on the side of his neck, just where a human might have a shoulder. Cloud jerked to the side, wheeling to face whomever had come up behind him. It was a man, an old one if the long grey beard was any indication, though he stood up straight and strong. He looked Cloud directly in the eye and spoke calmly.

"You are Cloud?"

Cloud nodded. His beak opened, not caring for once that this was a stranger or that chocobos couldn't talk.

"Tifa. Where's Tifa?"

"Not here. She went up the mountain a minute ago, following the man who did this. So many have gone up the mountain…"

"The man who…"

Cloud's eyes widened. He spun about and raced away without another word. A man had clawed Mr. Johnson open like a monster and set fire to a town. A man like that was dangerous, and if Tifa was near him…

Zangan watched Cloud race away. There had been a human spark in those eyes, desperate and selflessly brave. Tifa had been right; her Cloud was something special, far more than even he had suspected. Sending this chocobo off to her made him feel just a little better about leaving his student alone while he searched for other survivors.

"Be safe," he said, bending over another body to check for life. "I will follow soon…I promise."

* * *

It was dark. The sun had vanished utterly, and black smoke blotted out any light that the moon or stars could otherwise have given the mountains. This hardly mattered to Cloud, however: he had traversed these paths often when he was young, and he instinctively found the proper footing even without sight, even while sprinting for all his worth. By the time he reached the area he was least familiar with, he was outside of the smoke's smothering range and starlight once again picked out the faint forms of stone and mountain scrub.

Cloud sped on over rock and scree, not pausing even when the path forced him to cross a rope bridge. He had left the sound and smell of fire behind him, though he could still taste it in the back of his mouth and, had he chosen to glance backward, the red glow was still faintly visible against the dark sky. Instead, pure, unbroken silence twisted around him. It was as though the mountain itself was in hiding, cowering away from a monster even greater than wolves or dragons. Cloud shivered and stumbled in his run. The materia collar bounced against his neck, reminding him that he had faced monsters before and defeated them all. Cloud kept running until the smell of blood struck his senses, forcing him to stop for just a moment.

It was Mr. Lockhart, laid prone across the rocky earth. Cloud couldn't see all of his face, nor could he see the wound in the darkness, but the black stain spread around the man and the scent rising from it told him enough. Cloud edged around the body, swallowing hard. He didn't particularly _like_ Mr. Lockhart, especially after he insisted on Cloud's exile from Nibelheim, but at the same time, he knew that Tifa loved her father, just as she had loved her mother. The memory of a distraught girl leading her friends up dangerous mountain paths crossed Cloud's mind. He hurried on, leaving Tifa's father behind though the scent of blood stayed with him for a long while yet.

At last the path ended before a strange building, completely unlike any house Cloud had seen before. It was mostly cylindrical and from the way Cloud's talons clacked against the stairs at the front it was not made of wood. Cloud slowed down as he climbed toward the entrance. He wasn't sure if this was where Tifa was, but the path had not branched in any other direction between Mr. Lockhart and this place, and his childhood friend had not been beside her father. He tasted the air and thought he caught a faint whiff of human scent, though his senses were still muddled with the smells of burning town and blood and monsters. Having no other choice, Cloud stepped forward through the broken doorway.

The interior of the building was dimly lit by yellow electricity. It reeked of monsters and a sharp tang of something that reminded Cloud of materia, only stronger and more viciously wild. He smelled blood again, and as his eyes adjusted to the lighting and he looked around, he found its source.

A girl, curled up on the floor below a set of stairs, with long dark hair splayed behind her. Cloud's heart jammed itself into his throat and stopped beating for a moment.

"Tifa…"

Without telling himself to move, he was at her side. She was bigger than the girl he last remembered. She wore different clothing. Her eyes were closed; he couldn't see their color to tell if it was the same person. She was covered in blood all down her front, and Cloud found himself hoping that this was someone else…

A ragged golden feather with half of the fluff missing hung on a cord around her neck.

"Ti-Tifa…"

Cloud leaned over her, nudging her side lightly with his beak. Despite the blood, Tifa was still breathing. The chocobo remained still for a moment before he began to frantically scrabble at the pack strapped against his chest. It seemed to take an eternity to draw the green healing materia from its place there and pop it into his collar, and longer to awaken the magic inside of it. A green glow spread gently over Tifa, concentrating on the wound across her chest. Cloud watched tensely, re-casting the healing spell immediately when it finally ran out, even though doing so dragged at his own strength. Slowly, Tifa's breathing eased and deepened, and as Cloud cast the spell for a third time, she stirred, opening her eyes a fraction.

"…_Cloud?_"

He nodded. A tiny smile crossed Tifa's face.

"Missed you."

"You too. Hang on, don't move. You're not done healing yet—"

At that exact moment, a loud crash and a shout echoed from a room deeper inside the building. Cloud jumped, jerking his head about at the sudden cacophony just in time to see a dark form fly backwards down the stairs, bouncing to a rough halt about halfway up. The figure lifted its head for a moment before it dropped against the steps again, too injured or too exhausted to move further. Cloud stared, wondering why it seemed even vaguely familiar, before lifting his eyes to find whatever had caused this person harm.

He froze.

At the top of the stairs stood a tall man with long silver hair. Even at this distance, Cloud could see an unnatural glow in the man's green eyes and a cruel twist to his face. He seemed cold, dangerous, far too inhuman to be real. And in his hand was a long, curved blade, sharper than any monster's claw and gleaming in the light despite being laced with a pattern of dark blood. The stranger stonily regarded the fallen man on the stairs for just a moment before he slowly turned around and walked back into the room beyond.

"…_the General…it's every SOLDIER's _dream_ to be like him…"_

A black and white photograph emerged in Cloud's memory, directly alongside a black-haired boy with more enthusiasm than common sense. Cloud stared at the figure laying on the stairs, the figure of a young man with black hair, already struggling to drag himself upright and failing to do so with any speed. He glanced down at Tifa to see that she had fallen unconscious again and that the cure spell had run out for the third time, leaving only a shallow gash, only barely oozing blood in a long, thin stripe down the diagonal of her body.

A single long, thin stripe to match a single long, thin claw…a sword.

"_She went up the mountain a minute ago, following the man who did this…_"

Cloud stood up woodenly. Tifa would be all right now, and he should see if the other person – maybe Zack, maybe not – needed any immediate help before he found himself unable to use materia for the time being. The chocobo mounted the stairs as quickly as he was able, soon reaching the head of the man. He stared down at the face before him, matching features as well as he could in his memory.

Maybe Zack, maybe not.

He bent over the man's body, searching for open wounds and finding some blood, but not quite as much as there had been on Tifa.

"Spike?"

Cloud stepped back and his gaze met a pair of half-open violet eyes.

"Zack," he greeted. His mind was too numb and his childhood world too recently broken to care about games of secrecy. Petty little things like that hardly seemed to matter now.

Zack grinned.

"Knew it. If you can talk, you can _so _read…wait, what're you _doing_ here?" Zack began to struggle upwards again, attempting to prop himself up on his elbows at first but barely managing to lift his head from the stairs in the end. His voice was raspy, but only slightly less animated than what Cloud remembered. "Spike, listen, you've gotta get out of here. Sephiroth's gone nuts."

"Sephiroth…he burned Nibelheim?"

"Yeah, like I said…" Zack paused suddenly and dropped his head against the stairs, closing his eyes. "No, wait, this is too weird. Spike just showed up and started talking to me…I'm hallucinating now…aw, Shiva, this isn't good…"

"He burned Nibelheim," Cloud pressed. "He ki…he…hurt those people. Hurt Tifa. Mr. Lockhart. Everyone."

"Interrogation by chocobo," Zack muttered, "so not good. Maybe I've gone round the bend too."

"Zack. This is real. This is serious." Cloud bent low and willed his eyes to bore into Zack's. "Answer me: did Sephiroth do all of that?"

Zack stared back. He nodded slowly, just twice.

"Yeah…and if you're real, Spike, and I'm not nutso myself, then listen: get yourself out of here now. He's out to kill humans, but I wouldn't put it past him to…hey, wait, where're you going? Not that way, Spike, _down_-stairs is the exit…Spike!"

"I'm not 'Spike,'" Cloud said, pausing on a step to fumble with his pack. He undid the clasps with his beak and let it drop where he stood, taking his only other materia out and switching it with the low-level Healing orb. The sharp feeling of ice spread into a corner of his mind, sharpening the burning hate that curled out of his heart and gut. "My name is Cloud. And that…_monster_…is gonna _pay_."

Ignoring Zack's command to stop, Cloud took the remainder of the stairs at a chocobo's lightning dash and planted himself in the doorway. The room at the top was cylindrical, tall and deep, criss-crossed by metal pipes and tubes. A green glow rose from the bottom along with the sharp, wild, materia-like scent Cloud had caught before; the top of the room was lost in deep shadow. A single platform seemed to hover in the center of the open cylinder, supported by multiple beams and reached by a single narrow walkway. In the center of that platform was a glass tube with something blue floating inside it, and before that tube stood a silver-haired man with his sword held carelessly out to his side and his free hand lifting slowly to touch the curved surface.

Cloud reached for the ice magic in the materia, trembling as he forced it to the highest limit it had achieved – the second level spell – and released it in a sharp burst of light. Instantly, several huge crystals of ice appeared from thin air, driving forward into the man and pinning him to the glass. He cried out in surprise.

"Who…are you?"

Cloud was wasting no time in paying attention to the question, let alone answering. The instant the spell had been released he was sprinting forward across the walkway, driving all the energy he had left into powering his legs for that short duration. Halfway across he leapt into the air, drove sharply downward with his wings to gain lift, and then dropped from a height like a stone…a stone with a very sharp beak at its front. Said beak tore through leather and flesh alike, wrenching at Cloud's neck but making up for the pain with a gasp and a shower of blood from the monster. Cloud danced back, warming up another spell as he saw his previous ice cluster start to crack.

Sephiroth barely managed to free himself and spin around before another barrage of freezing crystals slammed into his body. This time, he thought himself prepared to break free immediately, but the sheer unexpectedness of what faced him made even the great General Sephiroth pause.

_A_…_chocobo_?

And then a sharply-taloned foot slammed into his face, drawing three deep horizontal furrows across the right side. Before Sephiroth could completely regain his balance, he found his legs kicked out from beneath him and he hit the platform hard, sparks flying across his vision as the back of his head connected with metal. The ice imprisoning him also shattered with the impact, however, and Sephiroth was free to move his arms again. He looked upward through the dancing black and white patterns to see the chocobo above and before him, leaping with wings half-tucked and one talon outstretched.

Unfortunately, even when stunned and being attacked by an unusual enemy, Sephiroth was a formidable and inhuman warrior. Faster than a striking snake, he was propped up on his right elbow and his left arm extended. By the time Cloud registered the motions, he had already been skewered by Masamune. He screamed, a rough, almost purely animal sound. Sephiroth stood slowly, holding the sword out straight and regarding the kicking chocobo on it with detached curiosity. His free hand rose and wiped the blood from his face, examining it as though to make sure it was real.

"So, what are you, then? Another experiment? You shouldn't have taken me lightly, no matter what enhancements you have been given by humans playing god."

The chocobo stopped moving, its neck bowed but not yet entirely limp. Sephiroth gazed at it for a moment longer before fluidly moving Masamune about, intending to dump the chocobo's body over the railing and into the pit of pure Mako below.

Suddenly, the chocobo moved again. His talons lifted and curled firmly around the railing as Sephiroth moved him over it; he held fast, refusing to move. The golden head lifted, and Sephiroth found himself pierced by fierce, unexpectedly intelligent blue eyes. The green materia orb glowed, but the chocobo's strength had been spent; the spell had little more effect than to cover the length of Masamune, including Sephiroth's left glove, with a thin coat of ice. The main raised an eyebrow, almost amused.

Then the chocobo spoke.

"My home…Tifa…Mrs. Perry…everyone…"

The chocobo's scaly talons creaked as they tightened on the railing, and the two massive wings rose, hooking themselves under the slippery, ice-coated blade. The faint smile had dropped from Sephiroth's face; now he frowned, perplexed. Since when could a chocobo…

"Monster…you _monster_…GIVE THEM BACK!"

With a scream, the golden bird hefted up suddenly on Masamune – so suddenly that between the ice freezing his hand to the hilt and his own instinct, which demanded he never release the blade in battle, Sephiroth felt his feet leave the floor. Before the former General could do more than think of how impossible this was, he and his sword were hurtling through the air, slamming hard into the far wall, and then plunging downward into the acidic green liquid light that was untreated Mako. In seconds, he was gone.

On the railing far above, Cloud teetered between the safety of an iron grille walkway and the dangerous free space over the Mako pit. His wings hung heavily at his sides, bleeding from twin slices along the front edges – while the ice had covered the sharp blade, the spell had been weak, and the stress of lifting the sword had caused the frost to crack. Even more blood poured from Cloud's chest and back. His vision was wavering, taking his sense of balance with it. As he swayed back and forth on the thin railing, his thoughts returned to those outside.

Zack. He had to show Zack he was all right, to tell him that Sephiroth was gone. And Tifa…hadn't he come back to see her again? In that case, hadn't he better start heading that way?

With what felt like a supreme effort, Cloud leaned as far forward as he could, and he fell into a crumpled heap on the walkway. From there, he dragged himself up and staggered inch by painstaking inch toward the doorway, forcing his feet onward even when it felt as though the entire room was reeling to the side, threatening to turn completely upside down on him. Somehow, moving forward helped keep the walkway mostly on the horizontal, though Cloud had to lean heavily against one railing in an attempt to keep the entire thing from tipping onto its side…or was he the one tipping? He couldn't tell.

At long last he made it through the doorway, though not without smashing almost headlong into one side of it, and staggered unevenly toward the stairs. The dark patch laid out along them, there…that was Zack. Cloud tried to call out to him, but the name came out in a wavering, squawking sound without any meaning. Nonetheless, Zack lifted his head in recognition.

"Spike," he said, "he's gone, then? Good…"

Cloud managed the first step but missed the second. Toppling forward, he half-rolled, half-skidded down the stairs, his feathers pulling against the carpeted surface and the carpet pulling against the front of his wound. Friction tugged him to a halt just when he was level with Zack; he caught a blurry vision of violet eyes, a pale human face, and dark hair before his own eyes slid shut and he plunged into cold darkness.

Just outside the doorway, a nondescript man in a dark blue suit was watching with his mouth hanging slightly open. A tiny vibration in the bulky phone-like device grasped in his left fist drew his attention; his mouth snapped shut as he raised the electronic box to his ear.

"It's over, sir," he said quietly, moving around the building to keep his voice from carrying inside, "and, sir, you may not believe this, but I swear it's true…"

The man vanished from immediate sight, and another shadow detached itself from the stairs before the entryway, ghosting up and into the electric lights of the reactor. Moving quickly, the old man took off his dark red over-robe and dropped it over his student, bundling her up securely in the cloth. He spared a deep bow for the man and the chocobo on the stairs, silently promising to return for them and, if that proved impossible, to at least see the last person either of them had protected to safety. Then, silently, he too melted into the night outside.

Minutes passed. Blood soaked the hard red carpet, staining it dark, and two lives struggled to cling to the world, to keep their bodies breathing and their hearts beating. Slowly, a noise grew in the silence, a rushing, rhythmic beat that pulsed louder and louder. Outside, a man in a blue suit stood waiting as a hulking metal machine slowly lowered itself from the sky, its rotors kicking up clouds of dust. The moment the skids of the helicopter touched rock, a side door opened and several uniformed men jumped out, followed with less certainty by a smaller group of men in long white coats. The two groups hurried into the reactor together, carrying stretchers and hypodermics full of medicines and cure materia. Through it all, the blue-suited man did not move from his post.

Finally, one last person stepped down from the helicopter: a thin, stooped man who wore white but moved with stronger self-certainty than the others. He paused barely long enough to readjust the round, thin-framed glasses he wore before striding toward the reactor. As he drew even with the Turk outside, said man turned to walk beside him, though it was with a sense of concealed distaste.

"Professor Hojo."

"Spare me the pleasantries," Hojo said, though what pleasantries he expected from a Turk beyond the bland greeting already offered could not be guessed. "You reported a strange occurrence here, did you not? Something about a common _chocobo_ rampaging in and killing my…Shinra's greatest SOLDIER?"

"It is inside," the Turk replied. Hojo huffed.

"Show me," he ordered, though it was pointless; the two of them were already passing through the entrance, and Hojo soon enough saw for himself the chocobo in question.

The troopers and other scientists had worked quickly; already the bodies had been removed from the stairs, placed on stretchers and maneuvered to the floor. Scientists were crowding around the fallen SOLDIER, maneuvering hypodermic needles and materia with practiced ease as they sought to stabilize him for later study. Hojo ignored him; the boy was of some interest to have survived his encounter with Sephiroth, but he was not the one to give the finishing blow. Instead, the Professor turned his attention to the other milling group.

The chocobo was laid out on the largest stretcher they possessed, but it still managed to overfill the thing, spilling over the edges in lanky limbs and loose golden plumage. Blood caked its entire front, and though a single trooper was standing at its head with a Cure materia in hand, the pair of scientists nearby were taking turns examining their needles and the chocobo itself, seemingly confused as to just what to do with the lot.

"Well?" Hojo sniffed, and the scientists and half the nearby troopers jumped, not having seen his approach. "How did it happen?"

"My vantage point was poor, but I saw the bird race in and attack General Sephiroth from behind as he stood in the room beyond," the Turk reported for the second time that night. "The General responded by stabbing the chocobo, and then he seemed to throw himself into the Mako for reasons I cannot fathom."

"So it simply survived? Useless," Hojo scoffed, waving a hand as though to demonstrate how utterly useless it all was. "You could at least have given me an interesting subject, but as it is…"

"It did wound the General, though superficially," the Turk pointed out, "and I am certain it used an Ice spell, more than once."

That caught Hojo's attention.

"Don't be ludicrous," he snapped. "The manipulation of the energy of materia requires either higher intelligence or immensely complicated electrical mechanics, the details of which you would not understand! A mere chocobo could not possibly manage such a feat."

The Turk held a hand out to the side, and a trooper stepped forward, placing the leather straps of two objects in it. The Turk separated these and held them up for Hojo's inspection.

"This collar was taken from around the chocobo's neck," he said, pointing out the bloodstains. "It is set with a materia ring and an Ice materia, second level, was locked in place. As for this pack, we have checked the formation of the straps and they fit perfectly, provided it is placed across the front of the bird's chest rather than at his spine. It was left on the stairs and contained a cure materia as well as a small bundle of gysahl greens and other sundry items. Any human owners are not present, nor is there a manufacturing mark anywhere on the leather."

Hojo snatched the materia collar away and set to examining it closely, heedless of the rusty flakes of dried blood that came off on his hands.

"Machines don't bleed," he was muttering, "but a chocobo…the formation of its mind and body, perhaps Mako in the bloodline causing a mutation…I wonder, if…"

"Professor?" one of the scientists ventured, "the SOLDIER specimen is ready for transport. Shall we prepare to move out now?"

"Fine, fine," Hojo replied, still distracted.

"And…what do you want done with the bird, sir?"

Hojo looked up impatiently, his glasses flashing.

"What do I want? What do you _think_ I want? We didn't just waste all that time stabilizing its condition to release it into the wild, now did we?"

"Sorry, sir," the assistant backpedaled, "I meant, should we label it for containment in the Midgar laboratory until your return there or keep it in Lab C here in the Shinra Mansion?"

"Neither, you fool! Laboratory A in the mansion, along with the SOLDIER!"

"The main lab?" the man stated in clear confusion, but a glare from Hojo soon set him straight. "The main lab, yes sir!"

The Turk watched the scientist race off to inform the general bustle of people that it was time to return to the helicopter. He sensed Hojo moving up beside him, but did not acknowledge the man, knowing that if the Professor wished to speak, he would do so without requiring any sort of invitation.

"I suppose you did well enough this time," Hojo offered grudgingly. "Though I do wish Sephiroth had not perished. At least my new specimens seem interesting enough at the moment that they almost, _almost_ might make up for it."

Hojo held a hand out and the Turk slapped the leather chocobo pack in it; only a fool would assume that the scientist had been offering a handshake. Turks were anything but fools.

"Keep an eye on this place and the surrounding area," Hojo ordered, as though the Turk were one of his own underlings. "The owner of that chocobo may come searching for it, and I might have a few questions relating to the creation of this bird. Such a phenomenon is unlikely to be natural, after all…"

"Yes, Sir," the Turk replied blandly, though he would be running the orders through his own command before following through with them.

He almost need not have responded; Hojo was already pacing toward the entrance after the stretchers and their carriers. The Turk didn't follow. After all, there was more work to be done here, and even if there weren't, there were better places to be than in Hojo's company. If he were a normal man, he might feel pity for the two now under that scientist's care, but as it was, he was a Turk. Pity had been buried deep inside his soul a long time ago, well out of sight and mind.

The helicopter outside had been on standby, its motor never stopping. Now the roar of the rotors grew in intensity briefly, groaning as they pressed against the air to lift the weight of the metal machine. Within minutes, it was whirring away, first on a short flight back to the burnt-out shell of Nibelheim, then, once it had been relieved of passengers and cargo there, onward to Midgar.

The Turk sighed deeply, thinking with vague longing of the hot cup of coffee he might have had during a late night in the office, and pulled a small camera and other equipment from a bag that had been left with him. It was time to finish his report on the scene.

* * *

Cloud didn't know how long it had been since he first fell into the cold darkness on that staircase, only that when he finally awoke his original wounds had healed. The localized pain, however, had been replaced with a burning sensation that swept over him from beak to tailfeathers without stop. It was dark, though he thought his eyes might have been open. At the same time, perhaps he was asleep and this was a nightmare.

He couldn't guess at the time just how often he would wish that were the case in the future.

He heard footsteps approaching, hard-soled shoes against a hard floor. Voices talking about a "Specimen C" and "paralysis agent successful" and "materia-based Mako susceptibility tests," all overlaid with a single, loud, vaguely familiar voice mocking someone for being "such big guys, can't even take a chocobo out of a cage without it being stone-cold drugged" and "why not come in here and we'll see just who ends up unconscious." The feeling of something cold latching onto one leg, being dragged across one smooth surface and onto another, then movement into a place that reeked of blood, and too-sharp wild materia scents, and fear and pain and a host of other unpleasant things, and through it all Cloud couldn't even find the strength to open his eyes and see what was happening around him.

The humans around him strapped something to his leg, something cold and familiar, and placed something damp against the sides of his head, and then they left. Cloud searched his mind lazily for the source of that familiarity. It was frigid, but only on the inside, and it made him think of the color green and the feeling of something hard and round. What was it? It was right there, right on the edge of his mind…

The damp spots hummed briefly, and a feeling of apprehension stole through Cloud's semi-detached mind. They hummed again, and he became hyper-aware of every feather, of the way he was laying unnaturally, flat on his back against something hard and cold, of the way he couldn't move a muscle, of the materia – his ice materia – touching his scaly leg. They hummed a third time, and sheer terror took hold of his mind. Something was there, something in the room, danger, threat, _something was there_…

Cloud wanted to tense, but his body remained heedless of his commands and instead lay limp across whatever surface he had found himself on. He wanted to run, to jump up and surprise his attacker, to do something, anything, but he was helpless, helpless except for…

The damp spots suddenly snapped, sending a shock of pain through him from head to toe, and Cloud instinctively released the spell he had been building up. It was a wild cast with no target, coating everything around him with a thin layer of frost, but that didn't matter. A moment later the damp spots hummed once more, sending a soothing feeling through his mind. That's right, it said, the threat is gone now. Calm…

He heard a door open, heard men crunching through the frost, and still the strange calm echoed in his mind. They removed the materia. He couldn't bring himself to care. They did something that caused a sharp pain in his leg, but he didn't feel like struggling. It was over soon anyhow, and he had begun to feel very sleepy. They took the damp spots away from his head, and the calm feeling vanished with them, but the drowsiness remained. The last thing Cloud heard was a nasally voice saying something about a fascinating success, and moving on to the next level, and then he was unconscious again.

That, Cloud soon learned, was the first day of something Zack called "a living hell," and it was the mildest due to the numbing, paralyzing drugs these humans, scientists, had filled him with. Almost as soon as he was fully recovered, he found himself dragged time and again into some form of examination room, poked and prodded, injected with a glowing green liquid that coursed through him like fire and sent his every instinct haywire.

The good days were the ones where he fainted early on.

"How long has it been?" he whispered to Zack one night, or at least what they assumed was night. They were situated in cages in a dark, windowless room, just across from each other. The other pens in the room were empty; they were alone.

"I dunno," the young man replied. "Few days? Few weeks? Hard to tell."

Cloud shifted listlessly, staring into pitch darkness with half-closed eyes. Remnants of that day's fire still curled about his limbs and dissolved the edges of his mind in haziness. It was too much effort to move much, or even think much anymore.

"Oh," he said, and that was the end of their conversation that 'night.' In just another hour, the white-coated men were back with their trolley and their just-in-case tranquilizers, and the cycle that had become 'day' for Cloud and Zack began again.

It didn't take Cloud much longer to realize that the trick to making time move faster was to pretend it didn't exist. He shared this quietly with Zack one night.

"Careful with that, buddy," said the young man. Despite having his share of the green liquid pumped into him, he was usually more aware of things than the chocobo was, and could usually function far better afterward. "Forgetting about time's one thing. Don't you dare start forgetting yourself."

"I'll try," Cloud said, but only after the silence implied that Zack was waiting for a response.

"Well, good. Because I swear if you do forget, I'll tell you that your name is Spike. Got that?"

He got it. His name was Cloud…though letting Zack call him Spike maybe wasn't so bad either. Anything was better than 'specimen C.'

And he did try. He was Cloud. His friends were Tifa and Zack. He had a family in Bill and Billy and Chloe at the chocobo farm. He wished he could have a biscuit or some bread or, best of all, a cookie once in a while rather than dry old mixed greens only when his stomach made clearly audible noises. He was Cloud, Spike, not Specimen C or 'the bird.' He tried, but as the time he ignored whirred on and on into a swirl of black cages, white examination rooms, and green liquids that glowed behind his eyelids whenever he closed them, he found himself fading into a foggy state of being. He spoke less to Zack, and still never at all to the scientists, and he stopped worrying about things like when someone would bring food next. It would come. It always did. It always had.

"You're looking pretty bad, pal," Zack whispered one night, crouching in front of the bars and staring at the chocobo opposite him. The golden feathers had lost their radiant shine; Cloud looked more like a dingy, bedraggled yellow chocobo than anything else. His eyes were most often shut or, at most, half-lidded, and though they glowed now with Mako, the light that had made him seem more intelligent than any other chocobo – the light that had truly caught Zack's interest years ago – had faded.

Cloud made no response. Zack gripped the bars in front of himself and peered harder through the gloom. Someone had left the light on in the hallway outside, and bits of it seeped in around the door – more than enough for a SOLDIER's enhanced eyesight.

"Cloud…Spike, buddy, you listening?"

The chocobo raised his head slightly. He looked at Zack, but his eyes were blank and unresponsive.

"This isn't good. We've got to get out of here."

Cloud's head lifted higher, and his eyes opened a fraction more.

"Out?" he rasped. Zack didn't care that the sound itself was pained; the faint lit of hope in the word made it the most beautiful thing he had heard out of his friend in…quite some time.

"Yeah, out," he whispered. "You really need time to get adjusted to the Mako, but I bet we could still do it. Look, every so often we get taken out to clean up, right? This next time, I'll be on the lookout and I'll find a way, and then the time after that, we'll use what I've found to make a break for it. Sound good?"

It was hardly the most detailed plan – it could hardly be called a plan at all – but Cloud didn't seem to mind. A little of that intelligent light returned to his eyes, a faintly determined expression crossed his face, and he nodded firmly.

"It's good."

"Right. You concentrate on recovering your strength, and just be ready when the time comes."

Zack was determined. He would get them out for sure – he knew he could.

His plan shattered the very next day, when they were forced through the pressurized showers sooner than he expected (though he stuck to his promise and made note of every moment their scientist guards were a little more relaxed than usual) and then, rather than returning to their night room, were instead dragged into a new examination room, one which housed two clear, upright glass tubes – one a bit wider than the other – with sealing doorways set in their sides. Locked in the narrower tube, Zack watched treated Mako start to bubble up from below his feet and he laid an apologetic hand on the glass nearest Cloud.

It looked as though that escape plan would have to be delayed, just a bit.


	15. Seeking the Sky

Jenova Project Observation Log

.

Day XX, Month XX

Sephiroth was lost this night, but in his fall I gained two new specimens of intriguing promise, as well as a number of lesser ones. It will be interesting to see whether my Reunion theory is accurate in any measure, as well as how it might be affected by Mako levels…or even species.

Specimen C: Chocobo, male. Likely a juvenile approaching adulthood. Feathers golden in hue; could be a sign of genetic mutation, as the common shade is dull yellow. Blue eyes, unremarkable. No immediately apparent signs of scientific experimentation or Mako exposure – further testing needed in these areas. Also, look into materia usage.

Specimen Z: Human, male, SOLDIER First Class. 18 years old. Black hair, violet eyes (Mako glow). Detailed personnel file, physical, medical, and mental reports included in file 343, under name: Zack Fair.

.

Day XX, Month XX

Materia testing complete. Specimen C capable of casting Ice spells instinctively when under the correct stimuli. Brain activity detected of a similar magnitude to that seen in humans during casting.

Mako tests negative; bird has not been previously exposed.

Note: capture other wild chocobos and test for materia usage.

Specimen Z responded well to new sedative, though it awoke sooner than hoped for. Testing regimen to begin tomorrow.

.

Day XX, Month XX

Specimen Z has been receiving S Cells as well as higher doses of Mako for a period of three months. Aside from brighter eyes and increased resistance to various sedatives tested on it, it shows no susceptibility to the call of Reunion, a call already being at least vaguely experienced by certain of the lower specimens. Could previous Mako treatments be the cause of apparent resistance?

Research on Specimen C reveals it to be a golden chocobo, an extremely rare breed. Also, other common yellow chocobos tested revealed no instinctive ability to access the power of materia. It is possible that golden chocobos, in addition to the ability to traverse all different terrain and the unusual wing size and anatomical structure which allows flight, also possess some difference in genetic code which allows this materia usage. Unfortunately, the previous scientific lack of interest in chocobos has resulted in a shortage of completed research, and as such there is little chance of pinpointing and exploiting this genetic difference immediately.

The idea of Reunion affecting an animal is intriguing, as is the possible effect of Mako on a grown non-human which already shows an affinity for materia. Testing for S-Cell compatibility scheduled to begin within the week. First Mako treatments scheduled in two days.

.

Day XX, Month XX

Lesser specimens all responding to idea of Reunion, though seeming loss of minds has made this difficult to verify through interrogation. Unfortunately listless as a whole; aside from speaking simple words and phrases about the Reunion and staring relentlessly at cell samples whenever they come within a certain range, none have made any movement towards Jenova's remains as of yet. Perhaps other factors are at work?

Specimen Z ultimately disappointing. Retains strong presence of mind, has made no mention of Reunion and made no reaction to the Jenova cells placed around the laboratory as test. As a SOLDIER: stronger than any others created save, unfortunately, Sephiroth himself, and perhaps the G-Project results. As Reunion subject: complete failure. Result: switching experimental focus to test for a way to create top SOLDIERS without resorting to pre-birth treatments.

Specimen C responding to Mako better than any lesser c-specimens. Other chocobo specimens tend to mutate when exposed and lose all former natural instincts save aggression, which is heightened to point of bloodlust, regardless of color or grade (detailed notes in File C-235). Specimen C undergone no physical mutations and instead has become listless to a similar degree to the lesser human Reunion specimens. Also gives slightly more attention to Jenova samples than Specimen Z, but still less than those who have already succumbed to the call, being more prone to glance repeatedly at the cell containers rather than gaze fixedly at them. Will continue Reunion testing alongside SOLDIER-style Mako treatments.

Note: attempt to find/commission breeding of other golden chocobos for further species testing.

.

Day XX, Month XX

Reunion Project at standstill. No clear results as of yet; fools in company are pressuring me to turn budget from this project into more immediate military work and to drop all SOLDIER projects altogether. Lesser specimens turned out slightly disappointing anyhow; despite repeated treatment, none have shown any change in demeanor or behavior from last recording.

Specimen Z progressing well, but slowly under regular Mako treatments. Promising work was seen with Deepground before it was shut down – perhaps those results may be channeled here with a few experimental alterations? Mako tank has been commissioned.

Specimen C largely unchanged, though physical state (molting feathers, bedraggled appearance, dullness of eyes, lack of responsiveness) suggests ill response to some treatment. Occasionally seems better directly following Mako treatment – commissioned tank for this specimen as well.

Attempted infusing chocobo eggs with Mako. Most did not survive; hatchlings that lived showed mutations ranging from apparent lack of all sensory input to inability to grow feathers to extra or missing limbs. All completely and mindlessly violent from birth onward. All died within the month. Very disappointing. Tempted to abandon chocobo research unless another golden is bred/discovered.

.

Day XX, Month XX

Mako immersion begun. According to prior research, treatment will be long and slow by necessity. It is a waste of my time and talent to babysit specimens through this simple stage; will return to Midgar until specimens reach required levels of Mako adaption and compatibility.

_-Dr. Hojo_

* * *

_Green_.

Acidic, vibrant, poisonous. It filled his entire world, inside and out – nothing else existed. He used to close his eyes in an attempt to shut it out, but it always got past somehow, glowing in his vision when he should have seen nothing but deep, dark, wonderful black. He'd given up on closing the green out at one point, relegating himself to drifting with eyes only half-lidded, watching the ebb and swirl of the strange, gummy, breathable liquid surrounding him and trying to remember something other than this Green.

(Something faint in the back of his mind said that something else had existed, did exist, somewhere outside. He caught flashes of other colors, warm and lively and deeply comforting, but they never stayed long enough for him to remember their names or what they came from, never long enough to replace the Green that filled his sight.)

He knew there was an outside. For one thing, it was somewhere in his mind and memories (always just out of reach, so tantalizing…) and for another, if he strained hard enough, he could see warped, indistinct shapes through the Green. They had no color of their own; only lights and darks tinted by the poison. Sometimes a lighter shape would move into view, stay for a while, and then leave again. Sometimes, if he really, really tried, he could see another pillar of Green nearby with a dark shape floating inside of it. He wondered if that dark one was like him, breathing in the Green. It seemed familiar, but he couldn't quite pinpoint _why_…

(A warm sound at the edges of his ears, a voice, rising, falling, fuzzy, gone. Dark hair, bright eyes. Friendly, lively, active, poking, prodding, teasing. A secret. He had a secret, but this one knew it too, now. What was it again?)

The secret. It was important, very important – that's why it _was_ a secret. But he wasn't the only one who knew it. Did that make it not a secret anymore? What was it again?

A muscle twitched, one he felt but couldn't name. Tiny silver bubbles rose in a brief clump before his eyes; he watched them go, exerting just enough control over himself to tilt his head up and see them burst against the dark ceiling, the upper limit of the Green, of his world. Slowly, he let his head fall again. Something caught the corner of his eye and he turned to look. It was a wing, rounded, feathered, green-tinted, half-folded. He wanted it to stretch out. It did, bumping against curved glass before it could be properly straight, and with the motion came a rare, clear thought.

That was _his_ wing.

Yes, that's right. He sank back into normalcy, recognizing that part of himself. He had always had wings. Two of them. He checked slowly, and there was the other one, just where it always had been. He had wings. But the ones who knew his secret…they didn't. And his wings were part of the secret.

Motion caught his eye. It was outside. Another moving shape, but this one was mostly dark, with just a little light on the side. He could see it…and it could see him. It could see his wings.

Could it see his secret, too?

He felt something then, something more than the idle wondering and curiosity and drifting that had filled his entirety for…how long?

(Lines scratched into dirt, meaningless beyond Sunrise, Sunrise, Sunrise…)

He felt…Discomfort. Anxiety. Fear. Anticipation.

(A closed door, dark room, waiting and waiting. Dark hat and bag, hated, uncomfortable. Something…no, someone (_important_), at his side, waiting and afraid and worried.)

His secret. What was his secret?

(Golden feathers, but he walked freely. It was something else, something he couldn't do, but he did sometimes, and this was a paradox that confused him…)

The shape outside turned. It seemed to be looking at him. He panicked. He _had to remember_, had to, so he could make sure it was hidden. It was part of _who he was_, but who was he?

"_Don't you dare start forgetting yourself."_

He was too limp, had too little control over his own body, to actually start at the clear words that entered his mind, but the tips of his limbs did twitch. The voice called to mind dark spikes and laughter, and he turned to look at the figure in the other tube, a figure that had suddenly come alive to thrash and pound against the walls of its own world, churning up entire clouds of bubbles that swept about him, hiding the form from view moments at a time.

They were…specimens.

Specimen C.

He twitched again, felt something of his curling in on itself. He remembered being called by those words, those sounds, but it wasn't right. It wasn't him. He had known that name and spurned it for another name, an older one, one truer to his own self, chosen by himself and by someone else (a warm glance, a small hand, a young voice, a sweet smell…) but he couldn't remember _what it was_.

The shape outside was gone. He hadn't noticed it leave, trying as hard as he had to remember his identity (his secret) so he could hide it, and distracted as he was by the words (a memory, he thought vaguely, without inflection) and by the motions of the other one…motions which had slowed slightly but had also only increased in power; he could hear the muffled thumps, and the Green around him trembled slightly.

He thought that the other was something like him. They had both floated in Green, motionless, drifting, for so long…now the other was moving.

Should he move as well?

He tilted his head back, then moved it forward sluggishly. It tapped against the curved, clear edge of his world, but did nothing else. Compared to the shuddering thumps of his neighbor, it was nothing. He felt another something (disappointment) and tried again. Less sluggish, a little faster, a little harder. He felt the impact, but no pain, and it seemed to jar something deeper than mere muscle and bone inside of him.

_Spike._

"…_I swear if you do forget…tell you your name is Spike_."

Better, far better than Specimen C. Better than bird, than chocobo. But still not really who he was. No, he was…

He jerked and thudded against the world's edge again. It almost felt easier to move now…

He was…something pulled from paper. A book. A child's book. Blue and white. High, up and up and up, where wings could reach, but only by flapping really, really hard.

He had tried flapping before, long before, but his world was too small. It shouldn't be this small. It should be big enough to fly. He'd flown in the far-off past; he _almost_ remembered the vague, indescribable sensation of wind pressing against feathers, of air pillowing his wings, weight battling weightlessness in his very core. It was…uncontainable, the world. Not like this.

He batted harder and harder. Beak, wings, talons. It should have hurt; he couldn't tell if it did or not. The Green churned and bubbled around him, disturbed by his motions, whipped up out of its thick, sluggish state. He felt a thrill. The Green couldn't hold him anymore; he moved it instead. This was as it should be; nothing should hold him, not unless he let it.

The edge of the world snapped, and a pale web spread out from the point of the last impact, glittering under the Green. At the same time, he heard a muffled crash and rushing sound from nearby. He didn't turn to look; he had to break this false edge, this make-believe world. He remembered; the real world had no edges, no bounds. And he was part of that world, not this one. He drew back, took one last breath of the Green, and jerked forward.

The edge shattered. The Green sucked at him as it rushed through the sudden gap, as eager to escape as he was. More of the edge vanished, torn loose by the torrent, and then he tumbled through as well, into cold air and warm, waiting hands. He shuddered, choking and coughing as his lungs changed the Green for open, light, unrestricting air. The hands supported him, a little clumsily, but helpful and friendly all the same. Finally, when he was breathing more easily, he looked up.

Hair, black, spiky. Eyes, violet, lively. A face he knew, sharp, human, smeared with traces of Green and smiling a little despite it.

"Hey, Cloud."

And with that alone, things fell into place. Not everything, but enough for now. He made his eyes smile back, even though he was a little out of practice, and opened his beak.

"H'lo, Zack."

The young man's smile grew, and he shifted against Cloud so that the chocobo was leaning against his shoulder. As he did so, Cloud realized hazily that he had grown just a little bit more; the top of his head was probably level with the top of Zack's, had they both been standing perfectly upright. It wasn't a bad height for a chocobo, not at all…

"C'mon, buddy, over here."

Leaning against Zack, Cloud dragged his talons across the stone floor. Lifting them was difficult. He could see them trembling when he dropped his gaze, though his still slightly muddled mind couldn't quite decide if it was due to the cool air in the room or some sudden weakness. Or maybe it was a strange, lingering sensation of illness hovering about his head and chest, like a fever that was only half-there. Cloud willed his legs to steady, but the shaking barely lessened for a moment, a step, before resuming with force.

"Okay, now down, nice and easy…"

Cloud slid to the ground, though the drop was mostly controlled by Zack, and leaned against the cabinet the man had led him to. He closed his eyes for a moment, marveling at the novelty of air passing through his beak, into his lungs, filling up the air sacks against his bones.

"Hey, Spike? You still with me?"

Cloud hummed, still concentrating on breathing. It seemed to subdue the sense of fever somewhat, something he was very glad for. He felt a hand touch the feathers at the junction between his wing and his back, brushing them off. He didn't bother opening his eyes; he knew whose hand it was, and he trusted it now.

"Ugh. Your feathers…_totally_ soaked in mako. We probably shouldn't leave that."

The hand retreated.

"Hang out here for a while, okay Spike? I'm gonna look for some towels or something to clean up."

Cloud nodded lightly. He didn't feel like moving much; it made him a little dizzy. He heard the clomp and squelch of mako-laden boots marching away, a door opening, and then those same boots fading away outside. Cloud slumped further against the cabinet and breathed.

He fell asleep; there was a brief moment of darkness, and then the footsteps were back, clomp-squelch with every step, and he raised his head from the hard stone floor and forced his eyes open. The blurry shapes in the room solidified into precise blocks of stone and glass and steel, and Cloud fought down a brief spark of fear as the door opened and Zack entered, a pile of assorted sheets, hand towels, and a lump which might have been a curtain balanced on one arm.

"The place is _dead_," the SOLDIER announced, striding across the room to help Cloud struggle to a more-or-less standing position. "Just a couple of scientists and a handful of low-level guards. No Hojo at all. Lucky us, eh Spike? Here, hold still a minute…"

With firm swipes, Zack began to wipe the worst of the acidic slime from Cloud's feathers. Towel after towel was stained green and discarded with a heavy slap against the stone floor, but at last both SOLDIER and chocobo were at least relatively clean and dry, and Cloud felt a little more awake and alert to his surroundings, though the sick fever lingered faintly in the back of his skull and throat.

"…sword," he mumbled, eyes locked on the hilt peeking over Zack's right shoulder. Zack reached back and tapped it with a happy grin.

"I know. The morons stuck it in a cabinet down the hall, didn't even bother locking it up properly. I found these, too. They yours?"

Zack reached down, dug under the bundled-up curtain, and pulled out two very familiar pieces of leather. Cloud stared at them, remembering flashes of the people who had made them for him, given them to him.

"…yeah," was all he said, and he didn't move as Zack snapped them on. The materia collar's ring was empty, but the front pouch was comfortingly weighted, and Cloud dipped his head carefully to check inside. The contents looked disturbed, and the gyhsal greens were wilted, disgusting masses inside their little bags, but it seemed as though everything was still there except…

"My materia?"

Zack shrugged.

"I brought what I found. Tell you what – two of my materia are still in the Buster. You can have one of them, just in case we run across some more trouble."

Zack removed the oversized blade from his back and peered at the two green orbs nested near the hilt.

"Okay…bolt or fire?"

Cloud shrugged.

"You get bolt, then," Zack said, snapping the materia out of Buster and locking it into Cloud's materia housing. The cool, glassy surface rested against Cloud's feathers in a reassuring way, but he sort of wished he had his ice materia and his cure. He had no idea how rough things might get as they tried to escape.

Zack replaced his sword and patted the side of his neck.

"Don't worry too much. We'll raid any cupboards we come across on our way out, just in case there's anything useful here. Better hurry, though…I knocked everyone out and locked them in closets, but that might not hold them too long. Can you stand now?"

Cloud took a deep breath, heaved himself off of the cabinet, and wobbled for a moment. His legs were shaking again, but he was upright at least. He took a step forward, then another, then stumbled and pitched forward, only to be stopped by an armored shoulder. The owner of said shoulder grunted, hefted him up, and let Cloud lean against him as they made their way to the door.

"Chocobos usually carry humans, you know that, right?" Zack griped good-naturedly, opening the door one-handed and peering out cautiously.

"Sorry," Cloud murmured, inwardly berating himself for his own weakness.

"No big. I'm SOLDIER; I can handle it."

"Hm."

"Okay, we're clear. This way."

Limping and leaning against Zack, Cloud finally realized where they were headed: to freedom. His body felt lighter already.

They made it out of the Shinra mansion without trouble, but once outside, both had to pause and look up at the first sky they had seen in what felt like a very long time. It was a perfect blue, dotted with fluffy white clouds and filled with a fresh breeze. A songbird twittered nearby, and hope filled them to the brim until it felt as though the grey laboratory deep underground was a world away, and nothing could ever take them back to it. Zack tilted his head back suddenly to laugh, tears slipping down his face, and Cloud stretched his wings to their fullest with a drawn-out, joyful cry, though he wobbled and shook with fever and exertion.

"Look, Cloud! Look at that!" Zack gasped. "Sky! Blue sky! It's great, so great…we're out! Great Bahamut, _we're out!_"

It took them a couple of minutes to calm down and regain their breath.

"Right…right," Zack said, his gaze still fixed upward. "Better get away from here, far away…we'll need some food, shelter, water to drink and to wash the rest of the Mako out…somewhere Shinra can't find us easy…better get started now."

Zack swiveled to face the path down the mountain, the path which led to Nibelheim, and Cloud froze.

"No."

Zack tilted a questioning look over his shoulder.

"Not there."

Cloud remembered fire, blood, death. There was nothing left of Nibelheim. He couldn't bear seeing it. Not now, not so soon. He looked up the mountains, to the peak of Nibel itself. There were dangers there, but also memories of security that had not burned or been destroyed in a single night's cataclysm.

"Up. That way."

Zack considered carefully.

Mountain caves for shelter, streams for water – however cold they might be – food in wild flora and fauna, and miles and miles of untamed wilderness that even Shinra's forces would find hard to comb. They would have to deal with monsters, of course, but at the same time, that was another security measure to protect them from Shinra. They could stay just long enough to get Cloud back on his feet properly and form a proper plan of action to go from there. Still…

"You _really_ don't want to go down the mountain?"

Cloud shook his head firmly, and Zack had to catch and right him when he dipped again.

"Up," the chocobo insisted. Zack spared a thought to be very glad he had tucked under his arm a couple of thick, if dusty, blankets on their way out of the upper portions of the mansion, just in case. These he now threw across Cloud's back before offering his friend a shoulder again.

"All right, then. Let's head up."

* * *

The nest was gone.

Cloud was certain it should have been here. Mount Nibel changed little with the years, and though many of his mind's memories were hazed in green still, his body had remembered the way clearly, instinctively. This was his oldest home, the beginning of his life.

And it was empty.

He sank down to the clear, wind-swept stone, Zack's voice barely heard in the background as the young man offered to look for a nice, sheltered, unoccupied hole in the ground nearby. Instead, he heard warks he no longer remembered the meaning of, half-familiar sounds and smells as he nuzzled up against black feathers, and green and white and pink and…_where was it_?

_Gone_, his fuzzy mind supplied at long last, after Zack had gone in search of their shelter. _Gone for good._

There was no scorched ground. No blood. Nothing he could pin on a monster, nothing like Nibelheim. Most likely his chocobo mother had simply become old and no longer returned here to build a nest. Perhaps she was even dead by now; Cloud distantly remembered reading, or being told, that the average wild chocobo's lifespan was about fifteen years.

She was gone.

The nest was gone.

His first home…gone.

And down the mountain, Nibelheim, his second home…destroyed.

Cloud stared at the peak of Mount Nibel high above, but he felt no thrill of recognition or sensation of belonging.

He had nothing here. Not anymore.

The moment he was well enough, strong enough again…

He would leave.

* * *

The constant drone of the helicopter's blades filled the cool mountain air, driving wildlife and monsters alike into cautious hiding. Flurries of motion covered the mountainsides as the noisy machine approached, passed overhead, and carried on in its slow zig-zag search pattern. Thin grey clouds covered the entire sky, so that even at high noon the ground was dimmed, making details of its surface difficult to pinpoint with a human eye even at a relatively low altitude.

In the helicopter, a young man with bright red hair sighed, adjusted the goggles on his head, and tweaked the controls slightly. The machine veered slightly north and west, and Reno peered at the ground again, debating his spotlight to himself. Two different radars on the console spun and beeped, scanning the land below and flaring up in bright patches of color – one reds and yellows, the other blues and greens. They had been recently invented and installed in TURK helicopters to aid in search missions during low visibility – missions much like this one. Reno cast them a quick glance and returned his gaze to the ground below, tweaking the helicopter's controls again to turn north and east.

In this sort of region, the radars were completely useless. And while Reno loved his machines and gadgets, sometimes he really had to curse the scientists and technology experts who came up with this junk.

He saw movement below, but it was only a scaly tail disappearing into a nearly invisible crevice in the rocky ground. At the same time, the sensors registered a red blip as well as a green one on the sketchy, gridded outlines of the landscape directly underneath the helicopter. Red to show body heat, green to show an unusual concentration of mako. Between the Nibel mountain range's surprisingly abundant wildlife and its unusual number of natural mako springs (and, therefore, mutated monsters), there was no telling if these corresponding marks on the radar were the escaped specimens or just another random monster. And between the rough terrain and the dangerously powerful creatures that inhabited it, it had quickly proven to be an unfeasible waste of men and resources to repeatedly send troops up to verify every such mark. In the end, the TURKs were stuck with visual feedback only, and always from a high altitude.

Humming a tune that had recently become popular in Midgar, Reno wished he had a proper, music-playing radio to help pass the time. That, and a chance to stretch his legs. He'd been four hours in the helicopter just flying out to the Nibelheim area from the outpost by Costa del Sol, and he'd long since gone twitchy and restless.

The helicopter turned west again. Then east. Then west. Always moving in the same regular zig-zag, always heading mostly north. Once he reached the upper end of the range, Reno would turn around and head straight back – at that point, the copter only ever had enough fuel for a straight-line return trip. The TURKs had been doing this at random intervals for the past eight months, ever since the specimens escaped and Hojo practically threw a fit demanding they be captured and returned. Eight months, and not hide nor hair nor feather of man or chocobo. Reno wondered if they were even in the mountains anymore, but extensive and regular interviews of all the towns and villages within a fifty-mile circle of the area had revealed no travellers of the proper description passing through.

This search mission was rapidly becoming expensive, and without any leads, the president was beginning to lose interest in its funding. Reno had to grin as he remembered witnessing Tseng, just nine days ago, coolly shutting Hojo down as the doctor attempted to blame the TURKs for 'incompetence' in retrieving his lost specimens. Heidiger and President Shinra both took Tseng's side of the argument, though the latter did so with a certain level of quasi-political fence-sitting. All the same, the scientist was losing support and becoming desperate. Whatever he wanted Zack Fair and that chocobo for, it couldn't be good. And while Reno and the others were TURKs, bound to follow orders no matter what, they all remembered Fair with some measure of a sort of respect, and so perhaps they weren't too bothered when even their most diligent searches came up dry.

The helicopter passed over the reactor and the rebuilt Nibelheim. Reno never batted an eye. If the escapees were more likely to be in one region of the mountains than in others, this was it. Ten, twenty, fifty miles on and no sign of anything but scampering rodents and a pack of Nibel wolves, Reno relaxed his eyes again.

"C'mon, Zack, move already," he muttered softly. "Gotta be better places to hide than this, yo."

His words went unheard and unanswered, and the helicopter drifted on under the clouded sky. On the ground behind it, wildlife began to stir again, crawling cautiously from dens and caves to return to the normal hunting and foraging interrupted by the noisy beast of the air. And far, far back, in a cave somewhere between and just south and east of the reactor and Nibelheim, a dark-haired young man shook his head at the sky.

"Will they ever give up?"

"It's been a long time already, so probably not," came a reply from deeper in the cave. A golden chocobo emerged from the gloom, walking quietly even across rough stone. He paused beside Zack, also turning his bright, bright blue gaze up to the sky. Zack frowned at him.

"Hey, take it easy. We don't want another relapse."

"I feel fine," Cloud replied dismissively, continuing to regard the grey canopy above.

"Yeah, that's what you said last time. You should be glad I was there when you collapsed, not to mention willing to drag your sorry feathered tail back up here all by myself."

"I am forever in your debt," Cloud said in a tone which could have made Corel Desert look moist. Zack rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue at the chocobo, who merely cast him a wry glance. "You going to town tonight?"

Zack grimaced and tugged at his shirt, which was so thickly patched that little remained of the original material. Despite this, it still sported new holes and thin spots, and his pants were in much the same condition.

"I'll have to. Thread, patching bits…rope and matches, among other stuff for both of us. Those Nibel wolf hides we got last week should be enough to trade."

"I could help you carry them across…"

But Zack was shaking his head. Cloud felt a slight burst of annoyance.

"How am I supposed to regain my strength if you won't even let me cross the mountains with you? You _want_ to get out of here, right?"

Zack nodded rapidly.

"Yeah, of course! It's just I've heard Shinra's been asking questions about the two of us. Lucky half of Standing Stone doesn't care who I am and the other half thinks I'm some kind of hermit trapper up here – they've never said anything about me. Now, if I go trotting through there with you along, someone might put things together, and who knows what'll happen then."

Cloud glared at Zack for a long time, then nodded.

"Fine. How much longer?"

Zack cocked his head, and scratched the back of it, his usual gestures of confusion.

"For what?"

"Until we can leave. I feel fine now, so how long do you want to wait to be safe?"

Zack turned his eyes to the sky again in thought, counting off on his fingers. At last he swiveled to face Cloud again.

"A month or so. Time to get supplies, make sure you're not gonna keel over without warning, figure out a route and maybe disguises."

Cloud thought it over quickly.

"One month," he agreed. He cast another glance at the sky, then stepped out. "I'm getting something to eat. It'll be a while before they come back anyhow."

"Hey, wait for me, I'm coming too!" Zack ducked back into the cave to grab his Buster blade, then followed Cloud out.

"So, any idea where we'll go first? Visits home, anything?"

Cloud shook his head.

"They know your home, and they might wait there for you. I won't lead them to the last one I have left. Somewhere else. You know the rest of the world better than me, so you decide."

Zack nodded. "Midgar, then."

"Their home?" Cloud looked at his companion in surprise, but Zack appeared completely at ease with his decision. "Why?"

"Because it's a big place, chock full of people. It's like hiding a tree in a forest, and they'll never expect us under their own noses. As long as we're sneaky enough, there's no problem."

Cloud tried to reconcile Zack with the concept of 'sneaky.' He had a sinking feeling in his gut.

"Once we're there, we'll set up a tiny little mercenary business in the slums," Zack planned cheerfully. "Do whatever needs doing for Gil. The place may not be pretty, but it's better than chilling out – pardon the pun – in these mountains for the next ten years. And who knows? Maybe after enough time they'll forget about us…or Hojo'll finally get mauled by one of his own specimens and die or something…and we'll be perfectly free again!"

"One can hope, I suppose," Cloud allowed. He still felt that this plan – if it could be called a plan at all – could go wrong too easily for his own comfort, but he could think of nothing better himself. "Midgar's…not far from Bill's Farm, right?"

Zack shrugged.

"Two-thirds of the distance between here and Bill's, I'd say, most of it ocean."

Cloud thought back as hard as he could. It had been too long since his own journey to Nibelheim, with too much mako green between now and then, but he was fairly certain it had been something like six or seven or eight days to fly himself over that distance. Carrying Zack along with additional supplies, complicated by their need to lay low and possibly even take an indirect route, and further complicated by the young man's frighteningly motherhen-like tendencies when it came to Cloud's wellbeing, it could easily take them several weeks to make the journey.

"It won't be easy," Cloud observed simply.

"Hey, at least you're walking on your own now. I don't know what I'd do if you were still dizzy and out of it."

"Hide me in the back of that cave and refuse to let me out until I was better, if these past months mean anything."

Zack simply laughed.

"Yeah, I guess so, Spike."

"My name is Cloud."

"Oh, come on, it's not like you even care that much anymore."

Cloud shot him another dry look, knowing by now that any protest would fall on deaf ears, and Zack laughed again, jumping up and punching the air.

"One month! Then, if you're still doing fine, off to a new life in Midgar! It'll work out just fine, Spike, just wait and see!"

* * *

**A/N**: First, I'm very sorry for the truly monstrous delay in writing this. My other stories are suffering just as much. I suddenly became involved in a number of time-eating things last semester, and with my habit of procrastination…well…

If any of you are still reading this story, even after all this time, I'd just like to reiterate that I do not want to abandon this. It's a fun challenge, taking something which is usually the subject of more humorous or crackish fics and making it into a serious adventure instead, and I don't want to give it up. That said, I'm still looking at a fairly busy semester here, continuing the stuff that ate my time these last few months, but perhaps now I'll manage to force myself into a writing mode a little bit more often.

That said, I'd also like to make a quick note about this particular plot period of Crisis Core: I'm not very familiar with it. I've never played the game, and I've only watched a small portion of YouTube playthroughs in this particular bit. I have some of the larger basics down, but not much of the fiddly details, and frankly I can see many of those fiddly details being skipped over thanks to Cloud's altered condition here. Depending on how I come to review/analyze this bit of plot, things could change drastically (though I'm thinking that the last fight with Genesis should probably happen, if only to prevent him from doing something stupid to the planet too early in the story).


	16. Wings of Light and Dark

'_Dear Zack…_'

Aerith's pen paused there. Dear Zack…what? She had stopped using "I miss you" as a lead-in to the full letter months ago. If Zack was really reading them, surely he would know that by now. If not, then there was little point to writing anything at all.

Eventually Aerith settled on a wish hidden in a question.

'_Are you well?'_

She hoped so, truly she did. At the same time, she realized how unlikely it was that she would get a reply: all of her various '_How-Are-You_'s and '_Are-You-Safe/Happy/Okay'_s had gone unanswered, after all. Why should this phrasing, bland as it was, manage where all others had failed? Aerith gripped her pen a little tighter and kept writing.

'_Where are you?_' This question had first appeared sometime around letter number twelve and never really went away since – once again, despite the discouraging, _heart-tearing_ lack of response. Aerith never really knew what to think about this question. On the one hand, a great and loving part of her liked to imagine that Zack was safe and happy, somewhere warm and open to the sky he once promised to show her. But if that were the case, why hadn't he ever come to see her? Written her a letter, at least? Did he…not care?

Once, she had tried to find out where he was and how he was doing. While selling flowers above the plate, she happened upon a pay-phone in decent repair. Acting on a whim, she looked up the phone number for Shinra's Military Public Relations desk and spent some of her gil to put a call through. It was a risk she had been warned against, contacting any part of Shinra in any way, but she had to try.

She introduced herself as an 'old friend' of 'Lieutenant Zack Fair' to the answering desk attendant and asked if she could possibly know whether he was on a mission at the time. The attendant had been amiable enough, and very apologetic when the computer system pulled up Zack's information as being classified and locked to any but the highest levels in the company.

"I can't even tell if he's on assignment or not right now. It's actually like that pretty often with our SOLDIER First Classes," the attendant had said at the time. "Sorry I couldn't be of more help."

"It's no problem," Aerith replied, "thank you anyhow."

Then she hung up and never tried again, not even when she wondered if things might have changed, if there might be some information which could have opened in the intervening months.

She didn't want to be a nuisance.

'_It's been four years_.'

Just in case he somehow didn't know, or hadn't realized. Just in case he didn't understand the significance that amount of time really had.

Just to explain, even a little bit, why she was doing this…

'_This will be the 89__th__ letter I have written…_'

She kept count. Tick marks on a spare sheet of paper once she realized that a year had passed and twenty-five letters had gone without answer. It was hard for her to believe she had written so much, hard for her to believe it had been four years since she started.

The next phrase was one she had decided well before this letter, but it was still harder to write than it should have been.

'…_but this will be the last one I send out._'

Her mother, Elmyra, had a point after all: Aerith was young. Lost loves were common at her age, either to declining interest on one person's part or to sheer distance, and the very fact that her first love was a SOLDIER only made it even more likely to happen. Four years and eighty-nine letters was perhaps a little too much time and effort to spend on a person who had, in truth, always been a bit of a flirt. There had been good memories, but really, how devoted to each other could they have been in that little time together? How deeply could they, a couple of teenagers, really have loved one another?

Perhaps it really was time to move on…

'_I hope that you will receive this last letter.'_

That was it. That _should _have been it. But Aerith still hesitated over the paper. It was too sour a note on which to end her last correspondence to Zack. Despite everything, despite promising herself to move on, she still felt something for the young man…a last bit of affection which hadn't faded with time.

Aerith set pen back to paper and wrote further.

'_Zack – the flowers are selling very well. They make everyone smile. It's all thanks to you._'

One last reminder of their time together and one last thank-you, not for giving her a business idea or a way to make the people of Midgar happy, but for making _her_ happy. Aerith hoped that Zack would understand.

Her pen hovered over the page. There was so much she wanted to say still, so many thoughts and ideas and feelings pooling up inside of her and begging to be let out, but no words for them. Besides, she had surely already expressed them all in her previous eighty-eight letters. This was her last. It was meant to be short.

Goodbyes hurt more when they were long.

Before she could think twice, Aerith signed her name and folded the letter – the note – in half. Then she stood up, smoothed out her new dress (pink, for a reason she chose not to think about at the moment) and tightened the well-worn ribbon in her hair (another item she tried not to think of too hard). The letter was slipped into one of the pockets on the chest of her short jacket, and Aerith left her home at a brisk walk, basket in hand.

She needed to visit her flowers.

The church was empty, as usual, aside from the bright white and yellow blooms and the silver-plated Guardian curled up in the corner. The creature lifted his head and tapped its whip-like tail against the wooden floor in greeting; Aerith turned aside to stroke its metal head and white-feathered wings briefly.

"Do you think you could do something for me, boy?" she murmured softly. The Guardian sat up and tipped its head at her inquiringly. Aerith pulled the letter from her pocket, showed it to the Guardian, and tucked it carefully behind the chest plate which bore a likeness of a man's face – the face of Zack's mentor, Angeal. If anyone could find him, surely a flying, nearly-indestructible clone of his teacher could.

"Take this to Zack. Please?"

Guardian stood fully, shook, and walked fluidly past Aerith to the center of the church. Throwing one last look back at her, it crouched, spread its wings, and launched itself up and out through the broken roof.

In mere moments, it was gone.

"Thank you," Aerith said to the empty church. She sat in silence for a time, then stood up and moved to tend her flowerbed.

Her farewell had been said. It was too late to regret.

* * *

The sun was just beginning to set over the Nibel mountains when Zack returned from his three-day 'preparations' trip. Cloud met him just outside the cave they had called home for the past few months, far more alert and healthy-looking than he had been even one month ago.

"Any trouble?" the chocobo asked, eyeing the bulging pack the Ex-SOLDIER had strapped across his chest, presumably to leave his massive sword free and easy to draw. It was a practical arrangement, but at the same time a bizarrely humorous one, and for a moment Cloud counted himself lucky to possess a beak incapable of expressing amused grins. It was hard enough biting back a chuckle without having to worry overmuch about his facial expression at the same time.

He was saved further struggling by Zack dropping the pack onto the rocky ground. The man then stretched, causing his spine to crack and pop in a way that made Cloud's feathers stand on end but brought a groan of relief from Zack himself.

"That's better," Zack said, rotating his arms at his sides before dropping into a quick series of squats. "No, no trouble at all. In fact, this could be easier than I expected."

Cloud turned the pack over and worried the clasps open with skillful talons.

"How so?"

"Seems Shinra's quitting on us," Zack announced cheerfully, crouching down to help Cloud drag out, unwrap, and inspect the objects he had just bartered from various nearby villages, and settlements on his quick trip down the mountainside. "Nobody's seen a Turk or even a soldier in a couple weeks now. We might not even need these disguises."

"Might as well use them," Cloud said, looking questioningly at a large tin of black dye as he did so. "Just in case…what is this for?"

Zack just grinned at him as he shook out a violet-checkered flannel shirt and a rough, dark blue pair of trousers from their tight rolls.

"Disguise," he said, holding the shirt up beneath his chin. "So whaddaya think? I came across a little group of peddlers on my way around, and they gave me an idea. I'll be a travelling peddler hoping to set up a permanent shop in Midgar, if anyone asks…and they might. It could even explain my sword a bit, since you don't see that kind of thing being carried around by just anyone. Won't fool any Turks, but we're hoping to avoid those anyhow, so…"

"Do what you like," Cloud shrugged, setting the dye aside. He saw no point in using it on the clothing, personally, but as long as Zack thought it a good idea he wouldn't argue the point. "I suppose this means I'd better keep quiet again, though."

"Might be for the best," Zack agreed, removing what seemed to be a dark green, rolled-up blanket from the pack. "Here, check this out."

Upon shaking the thing open, Cloud thought it had to be the oddest-looking blanket he had ever seen. It was entirely the wrong shape and had long ribbons attached at the curved front end as well as a couple of spots along the sides. Odd though it was, it also looked strangely familiar, as though he had seen something like it in the past, somewhere in the background of a memory. It had never been something important, but it was still there, and the notion that he knew what it was but simply couldn't remember was maddening…

Then Zack picked it up and threw it over Cloud's back, and the shape suddenly made sense.

"You found a _chocobo blanket_?"

Bill's farm – _that _was where he had seen the things. He had always been given the larger, rectangular human-style blankets to nest in, though, particularly since he had the good sense and ability to tuck himself in under them if he ever felt cold. As such the specially-designed blankets for sleeping chocobos had never held any use to or significance for Cloud.

Now, wearing one for the first time, he wasn't quite sure what to think of it. It was surprisingly comfortable, but at the same time it felt slightly strange. Eventually he simply decided to give it a chance; his materia collar had felt the same way when he was first given it, after all, and now he wore that almost constantly, hardly ever realizing it was there.

Zack tweaked the blanket, fixing it with a critical eye.

"Seems to fit okay..."

"Not that I don't…appreciate it," Cloud ventured, "but you mind telling me _why_?"

Zack dragged the blanket off and started folding it back into its small, tight roll. Somehow, he also managed to slip a shrug into the motions.

"The guy insisted, and I couldn't really refuse without coming off as a neglectful jerk or something. Besides, it could be useful when we hit colder areas, or even if we run short of gil later on or something…"

"Wait, 'insisted?'" Cloud brought his head up from where he was organizing their various belongings, mostly odds and ends they (Zack, rather) had somehow accrued during their brief stay. There wasn't much; a couple of tattered old blankets, ends of thread, a couple of needles and a battered pair of scissors, various rocks and pebbles the young man had picked up because he liked the look of them… "You told someone about me? I thought we were supposed to be going _secretly_."

"We are! I didn't want anyone to suspect anything, so I just laid some groundwork. We can't fly all the time, and if one or two backwater villagers really believe I'm a trapper who caught a wild chocobo, it won't cause any sort of fuss if we have to walk through, right?"

"You're…actually putting a lot of thought into this," Cloud said, still a little surprised at Zack's sudden rush of words…and at the foresight they revealed.

"What? Do you think I wouldn't?"

"Considering the first time we met," the chocobo returned dryly, returning to sorting their belongings into 'necessary' and 'abandon' piles, "you took one look at me reading and then immediately ran screaming for your teacher…"

"I wasn't 'screaming,'" Zack groused, "and I was, what, sixteen at the time? Give me a little credit; I'm a First-class SOLDIER! Or was. Don't throw that away, it's lucky!"

Cloud gave Zack his best long-suffering look before he sighed and pushed the sharp, green-laced crystal shard into the 'necessary' pile.

"That's the _only_ treasure we're taking along, and only because it was useful," Cloud conceded. It was true; at one point, near the beginning of their recuperation in the mountains, Zack had wandered out for water and carelessly left his sword behind. A sudden burst of foul weather had driven him into a nearby cave, one filled with crystals that glowed with traces of mako…and with a nest of mutated monsters.

As it turned out, a very sharp shard of crystal in the hands of a wielder both skilled and desperate enough made for a surprisingly effective knife.

"And it's pretty," Zack added cheerfully, seeming to ignore Cloud entirely as he knelt and shifted through the small tangle of 'discard' items on the ground. "Hey, you're leaving your key?"

Zack lifted a rusted old key into the air, eyeing it appraisingly. It might once have been silver; bright glints sometimes shone through the rust when the object was turned about under sunlight. It was also very old-fashioned, with a looping, heavily decorative top and large, chunky teeth. Cloud had stumbled upon it one day almost at random, picking it out of a crack near the old nest-site out of sheer curiosity. The action of levering the thing out with a stick brought with it an intense sensation of familiarity and déjà-vu, and Cloud had carried it back to their camp almost without meaning to. Zack had no idea what it could be for, but being a man with the philosophy that anything potentially useful or profitable should be held onto he wouldn't let Cloud put it back.

"It probably belonged to somebody in…the area. It's been lost a while. Whatever it belonged to is probably…long gone, by now," Cloud replied, mercilessly shoving Zack's fledgling rock collection to the discard area. "We will have no use for it."

"Hmm. Maybe…and maybe not." Zack regarded the key for a while longer, then pocketed it smoothly. "Doesn't take up too much space anyhow. I'll just carry it for you then."

"Whatever you want."

"Right," Zack said, standing up and brushing off his frayed and patched SOLDIER-issue pants. "I'll leave you to that, then. If we're leaving tomorrow, then I've got a lot of hunting to do today."

"Hunting?"

"'Course," Zack replied, clapping his massive broadsword securely onto his magnetic back holster. "No real trapper-peddler would ever take a trip without a few goods along, would he?"

Cloud's glance moved rapidly between Zack's retreating back and the half-unpacked pile on the ground, quickly adding the weight and bulk of furs, skins, teeth and other valuable monster parts to the food, blankets, and survival goods they had already gathered. He also quickly added in this 'proper appearance' factor which would let them move relatively undetected, and he came to a vaguely annoying conclusion.

"Zack!" he yelled after his human friend, "you'd better not think I'm carrying all of this!"

"Don't worry, Blackie," Zack replied without turning around, "I'll carry my share!"

"Blackie?" Cloud muttered, his brilliant blue eyes narrowing into his version of a confused expression. His eyes fell, almost of their own accord, to the cans of black dye Zack had brought along, and then tracked up to the very bright, very noticeable golden feathers on his own chest.

_Oh no…_

Early the next morning, a black-haired traveler and his equally black-feathered, rather obviously irritable chocobo passed through a couple of tiny mountain towns too small to be found on any map of Gaia. The young man was cheerful and at least passingly well-known to the locals, having traded with them on and off for the last few months. The chocobo was new, but nobody could be bothered to question it; the man was obviously a skillful trapper, and chocobos had been sighted in the region before. There was nothing strange about the pair. They were not unknowns. They were not suspicious in any way, nor dangerous, nor on the run from anything.

Not one single person drew a correlation between the friendly trapper-cum-peddler Zack Fair and his new bird, Blackie, and the unnamed, barely-described, highly dangerous escapees of Shinra's search. Not one had any reason to, after all.

And so Zack and Cloud passed unnoticed and untracked into the wilderness, slipping through the loosened net of their pursuers and leaving hardly more than the trace of a trail behind.

* * *

The terrain was near-desolate, open and relatively flat. As far as the eye could see, nothing moved save a trio of dark birds circling high in the overcast sky, and the figures of a man and a chocobo walking across the plain itself.

At first glance, one might assume them to be simple travelers. The man – evidently young and strong – wore plain, serviceable blue jeans, a violet-checkered shirt and a set of brown suspenders. Both he and his chocobo carried small, well-worn packs and a couple rolls of various material on their backs and walked with simple, casual purpose. The fact that the chocobo was black – a relatively rare color – and the spiky hair and giant sword of the man would surely garner a lingering gaze or two should they pass anyone, but little more than that.

Not that it mattered much – neither had seen hide or hair of another human being since they left the last road two days ago.

It was, perhaps, a good thing, for if another human being had been present, the sight of the chocobo opening his beak and speaking clear Continental would surely have put that person into shock.

"Are you sure we're going the right way?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah…pretty sure," Zack replied distantly. Cloud looked at the surrounding terrain with some doubt.

They had already been walking for days, first following the foot of the mountains and then crossing into open plains. Occasionally they happened upon dirt or gravel roads, which they followed for a time before cutting back into the wilderness, where nothing could guide them except the sun and stars.

Cloud wasn't entirely certain, but he did think that he had followed the line of the sun's path on his journey from Bill's Farm to Nibelheim. Instead of following that line in the opposite direction, Zack was leading them almost perpendicular to the path in question.

He seemed confident enough, though, and Cloud's memory was still frankly a little fuzzy on details. The chocobo had eventually resigned himself to letting Zack – the more accomplished traveler of the two – choose their course.

This particular evening, however, Cloud found himself feeling more and more uneasy as they walked on. It had been quiet – perhaps a little too quiet. There hadn't been a monster attack since morning, and while the respite was welcome at first, he soon had to wonder just why nothing seemed to inhabit the area…or, rather, why nothing seemed to be willing to show itself.

Cloud raised his beak and sniffed at the air. There was a definite tang of mako, something which was now mingled deeply within Zack's scent as well as his own. It was stronger than usual, though, and underneath it there was a peculiar taint, sickly-sweet and foul, like stagnant water and rotting flesh. And something else, fresh, crisp, but what it was Cloud could not guess.

"Zack?" he said at last, when the smells had grown strong enough that it was clear they were approaching whatever gave them off. "I think there's something—"

"There you are."

Something fell from the sky faster than Zack could draw his sword, and the scent came with it. Purely on instinct, Cloud jumped back to give himself room to see what was happening properly. He had barely caught sight of black feathers and grey clothes before a pale-haired man stood between himself and Zack, the latter of whom was being restrained by two more strange, grey men. The rotting, mako-laced smell flowed out of all three of them, nearly choking Cloud for one instant. They looked faded, half-dead, and strangest of all, each one of them sported a single deformed, black-feathered wing on his left side.

"Get off me! OW! Hair—stop—pulling!"

Cloud quickly realized that they were ignoring him. So much the better. He edged carefully sideways, moving around the tallest man to get a better view of Zack.

"_When the war of the beasts brings about the world's end…the goddess descends from the sky…_"

Zack was kneeling on the ground, his arms stretched and pinned back. One of the grey men had a firm grip on his spiky hair and was pulling with what seemed to be a single-minded determination.

Cloud eyed the dusty-pale back of the man closest to him – the one reciting poetry as he gestured grandly with one hand – and charged up a bolt spell. This one seemed to be the leader, was most obviously armed with a sword at his waist, and was closest to Cloud himself and therefore most likely to retaliate quickly should Cloud instead hit one of the others. Also, if he could make enough of a commotion, Zack might be able to break free and help.

It had worked once before, when they'd stumbled across a nest of monsters in the foothills after all…

"_Wings of light and dark spread afar. She guides us to bliss, her gift everlasting._"

Several things happened at the same instant. The stranger finished his impromptu recitation and bowed his head as though to an invisible audience. Zack's head suddenly jerked forward as several long strands of hair ripped free in his captor's hand. Cloud's bolt spell manifested in a sudden white-hot flash of power, screaming toward the stranger's unprotected back faster than blinking…

The spell broke upon the black wing, once half-spread but now tightly furled around the stranger's body. Cloud's beak dropped open and a strangled sound of surprise escaped. No one, surely, could be that fast…

The wing drew aside to reveal the stranger, now turned so that he could see both Zack and Cloud at the same time. He looked only mildly surprised, slender eyebrows raised but expression tranquil. The brightness of his eyes pierced Cloud's own; they were _too_ bright for that dull, pale, sickly face and lank hair. They were the eyes of a younger man than this one first appeared to be, the eyes of a SOLDIER like Zack.

"Yes," he mused smoothly, "I did hear that there were two, and one a beast…Professor Hojo's talent has increased, if he has given animals an affinity for materia."

"Ah! My hair! That's my hair!"

The strange man cast a sideways glance toward Zack. The young man had ceased struggling in favor of staring in horrified bemusement at the black locks in one of the lesser soldier's hands.

"You were a test subject in Hojo's new experiment. A modified version of Jenova's power runs through you."

Cloud had been debating another, stronger bolt spell, but the stranger's words gave him pause. It sounded as though this man knew something, and while Cloud did not wish to remember more of his captivity than he had to, he couldn't deny a niggling, nearly-morbid curiosity deep inside his mind. Just what had Hojo done to him? To Zack?

What of this 'Jenova?'

"What? Seriously?"

Zack's eyes darted to meet Cloud's. The chocobo merely watched, tense, as the strange man gestured to the subordinate who had torn out Zack's hair. In a bizarre move, the subordinate lifted the hair to his mouth…

"No way…he just ate my _hair_…"

The stranger smiled and spread his arms out. For the first time, Cloud noticed the strange purple fruit in his left hand and recognized the source of the fresher scent which permeated even this man's terrible, rotting stench.

"Your cells will be my gift of the Goddess. The degradation will cease."

The two subordinates suddenly released Zack. He stood to fully face the stranger, but made no move to draw his sword. Cloud kept his eyes on his friend, waiting for a signal of any kind. None was given.

"You are twisted."

"The monster has been harvested, and can be discarded, as can his beast."

"You're the monster. And these things of yours are more beasts than Cloud has ever been."

The stranger seemed to pay Zack's words no mind, raising the apple and speaking as though addressing it.

"_Legend shall speak of sacrifice at world's end."_

He turned and began to walk away, not even sparing Cloud a glance as he passed. Zack followed grimly, reaching back for his sword. Cloud let him, falling behind the man's back to keep an eye – and a charged bolt spell – trained on the strange subordinates, neither of which had moved a muscle since releasing Zack from their hold.

"_The wind sails over the water's surface…quietly, but surely."_

Effortlessly, the stranger spread his malformed wing and leapt into the air, followed shortly by one of his men. The last one moved as though to join them, but his legs buckled without warning. Gasping and clutching at his throat, he collapsed.

"Zack," Cloud said at last, eyeing the writhing man carefully, "what—"

"Cloud, get back!"

The chocobo obeyed without question, leaping backwards just as the man's body was engulfed in green and black sparks, like liquid mako turned to gas. A bare instant later a brilliant light exploded from his form, and the screaming man changed into a bizarre creature. Like a strange fusion of living creature and machine, wide, blue-webbed wings spread from its back, tipped in wicked metallic claws which more than doubled its overall reach. A curved sword appeared in its right hand and scales grew over what had once been exposed flesh. The monster writhed a moment longer, screaming in apparent agony, before it abruptly threw itself at the closest living creature it could see – Cloud.

Lightning flashed across metal. The monster reeled back, screaming as the powerful spell scorched its scaly right arm. Zack stood just before Cloud, buster sword upraised, having just blocked the curved blade in the monster's grip.

A flicker of movement caught Cloud's eye.

"Zack, right!"

The ex-SOLDIER spun his massive blade in hand, swiveling it downward just in time to deflect the claws slashing at his side. Cloud moved to join him, but suddenly realized that something was restricting his movements just enough to annoy. He looked at his back and was reminded of all the packs and rolls he carried. Zack had already dropped his pack in the grass to do battle. Cloud ducked and began to worry at the clasps across his chest.

He unburdened himself just in time to dart in and knock a clawed wing away from Zack's unprotected left side.

"We need easier buckles," he shouted, ducking under another blow and aiming a vicious kick at the monster's head. "That took too long!"

"We'll think of it later," Zack replied. "Down!"

Cloud ducked. Fire exploded over his head, the heat of it ruffling his bizarrely-shaped crest as it passed. The monster screamed and staggered backwards yet again. Cloud fired another bolt spell. This time the monster dodged the attack, but it was off-balance when Zack suddenly slammed into its flank, cutting a gash into its side.

"Who was that?"

"What, this thing? Nobody."

Cloud drove himself into the air, drawing the monster's gaze and providing Zack with another opening.

"No, the other one!"

Zack ducked away from a retaliatory claw-swipe. The monster's back was wide open.

Cloud dropped.

The monster screamed, beating its wings wildly, and Cloud retreated with dark blood staining his talons.

"The strange one doing all the talking!" Cloud elaborated when he rejoined Zack's side.

"Oh, Genesis?" Zack took his left hand from the buster sword. Green materia glowed in a bracer around his wrist. "He's an ex-SOLDIER."

Zack slashed his fist at the monster. Fire and smoke exploded in the air around it. Then, without warning, the flames seemed to split into three smaller fireballs, rushing toward Cloud and Zack.

They had just enough time to register surprise before the attack struck.

Cloud rolled through the grass, smothering smaller sparks and flames before they could catch properly, and stood up again. His chest ached and stung, and he didn't have to look to know that his feathers were scorched at the very least. Instead, he concentrated on the materia in his collar, and a bolt of lightning struck the monster before them, crackling over its strange form in white-hot arcs.

"I gotcha, buddy!"

A warm wave of healing magic swept over Cloud, seeping into his very core like sunlight and refreshing him from head to talons. The stinging in his chest was swept away, and he took a deep breath, relishing the fact that he could do so without pain. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed Zack drawing his buster sword from where he had stood it up in the ground to perform the magic.

"Thanks!"

Cloud leapt forward, dancing around the monster's back to attack it from behind again.

"No problem!"

Zack followed, charging boldly from the front.

Caught suddenly between two threats, the monster hesitated for a vital second.

The sharp tip of Cloud's beak found the soft, vulnerable spot at the base of its neck just as Zack's oversized blade pierced it through. The monster's clawed wings, half-extended to reach Zack an instant too late, faltered and thudded to the ground. The thing's entire body shuddered and slumped; the only thing left holding it up was Zack himself, and he soon quit the job, tipping the mutated form sideways and withdrawing his blade.

"What was that all about, anyway?" Cloud asked, cleaning the front of his beak on the edge of his wing.

"That…oh, you mean what Genesis was saying?" Zack shrugged, flicked blood from his buster sword, and swung it back over his back to attach to the magnetic holster on his suspenders. "No idea. He quotes Loveless too much – it's a play, a sort of story – and so he never really makes sense."

"You seemed to understand some of it," Cloud countered, moving back to the messy piles of their gear.

"Bits and pieces," Zack allowed. "I knew Hojo'd done some weird stuff to us, but Jenova was a surprise…if it's true."

"What's Jenova?"

Zack was quiet for a long time.

"A monster," he finally said.

"…I see."

Zack helped Cloud reassemble his own packs, and the two prepared to move on in silence. Both did their willful best in ignoring the dissolving monster corpse not fifteen feet away, but it was still a relief when they turned away from it and moved on.

"Oh, by the way," Zack said suddenly, several minutes later when they had moved out of sight of the sparking body, "about Genesis…if we ever see him again, feel free to talk all you like. I figure he deserves a good shock or two after all this trouble he's caused…and those comments he made."

"Hm. I'll think about it."

"Please? I really wanna see his face…"

"…I'll think about it."

"In the meantime, we should also think about re-dying your entire front. Seems cure spells only bring back feathers in their original colors."

Cloud glanced down and had to admit…he did look rather spotty.

"That's…"

"Inconvenient?" Zack grinned wryly. "Yeah. I guess you're just not allowed to get injured from now on. I don't wanna keep buying dye every time we come across a town big enough to have it."

"I'll try, I'll try."

"Good. Oh, yeah, speaking of dye, I don't think I ever told you about the time some dumb second-class guys got their hands on a bottle of shampoo which belonged to Genesis. They didn't know it at the time, of course, thought it was going to a buddy of theirs, so what'd they do? They dumped an entire package of hair bleacher into it…"

It was strange, Cloud reflected abstractly. Strange how he could be laughing, even slightly, when just minutes in the past he had been in the midst of a life-or-death battle with a monster. When just months in the past he had escaped from hell on earth. When it had been years since he had last seen either of his oldest childhood homes in one piece, and he now knew them both to be gone forever.

Strange, but oddly natural.

Perhaps that was just part of having a friend in Zack Fair.

* * *

Opulent.

That was the word for the Shinra executive boardroom. Though actually sparsely decorated, everything within its walls spoke of money. The plush red carpet, gleaming hardwood table, gold-sheathed light fixtures, surprisingly comfortable chairs…

Most of the department heads would have loved to get their hands on the budget which surely went into finishing and furnishing this one room. It wouldn't be a massive amount, especially when compared to their usual allotments, but as the saying went, every little bit helps.

It was a statement which Hojo was keenly feeling the sting of, for the opposite was true as well: every little bit which is taken away can rather hurt.

Hojo's long fingers curled around the arm of his chair, clenching as he watched, in his mind, the science department's budget slowly get whittled down, funds diverted from his own interests and experiments into other areas – Scarlet's infernal machines, Heidigger's pompous military posturing, even Reeve's goody little urban-development projects.

If that idiot Palmer got the budget and permission to make another attempt at his once-failed space program, it would be more than Hojo could bear.

"On to our last order of business tonight – AVALANCHE," the president said from his seat at the head of the table. "I had thought that we crushed them years ago, but it appears that some survived, or that another group brought it back. They're starting to become an annoyance, spreading their propaganda about in the slums. I'm sure we agree that the last thing we want is a city-wide rebellion, hmm?"

"I shall divert all of my Turks to a full-scale search," Heidigger declared – loudly, as usual. "Not even the slums can hide them for long!"

"Forgive me for interrupting," Hojo sneered sarcastically, drumming his fingers restlessly on the tabletop, "but aren't most of your Turks currently engaged in highly important missions? For example…the retrieval of two _very valuable _specimens, and the investigation of the last Ancient?"

"Ha! Important? Your precious specimens didn't even make it out of the mountains – they're dead by now!" Heidigger retorted. "As for the Ancient, where's the proof? They've shadowed that girl for years and, according to the reports, there's _nothing_ to say she's anything of the sort!"

"Now, now, let's not bicker," Scarlet interrupted smoothly. "After all, what is to be gained by it?"

Her smirk said that she knew just as well as everyone else in the room exactly what was to be gained.

Hojo clenched his teeth. Normally he could disregard most people if they weren't a specimen, and therefore had very little personal opinion on them, but these few were ones he had to pay attention to every now and again. He hated them all for it…but Scarlet especially.

It was laughable, to think that her clunky machines could replace the elegant genetic alterations of his SOLDIER projects.

Laughable…and yet, somehow, their moron of a president seemed to seriously believe it could happen.

Yes, Hojo hated her…

"As Heidigger said, the two specimens are gone. However, the Promised Land is still a possibility. As such, I want at least one Turk to remain on duty concerning the Ancient. The others may commence combing the slums for Avalanche."

So the president ordered, and so it would be. Hojo watched the last remnants of his Jenova project – his greatest, though still-incomplete, experiment to date – slip forever out of his grasp.

"Very well," he barked sourly, standing up, "if this meeting is adjourned, then I shall be in my laboratory."

Nobody stopped him from stalking out of the room, for the meeting had indeed ended. Though Hojo was in too foul a mood to be truly glad of anything, this did satisfy him at least.

After all, he was due to receive a special package from Nibelheim at any time.

His last specimens may have gotten away, and the other, more useless ones released, but as long as he had the base material, he could always start over.

Shinra be damned. Reunion was fascinating…and Hojo would prove it true.

* * *

The air was warm and a little muggy. Insects droned about among the thick, juicy-leafed vegetation that lined the path leading towards the village before and below them. Cloud and Zack regarded the little town from a distance, the former with a measure of confusion melting into suspicion, and the latter with a painful mixture of joy, relief, nerves, and guilt.

Silence muffled the air between them for several long, drawn-out moments.

"Zack. This isn't Midgar, is it."

"Uh, no…funny enough, no, it's not," the young man replied, laughing a touch nervously and scratching the back of his head.

"What is it, then?"

"Uh. Gongaga."

"Which is…?"

"Not much to speak of, mako reactor so nothing else's out here…you know, just another little country town. So, should we go then?"

Zack started down the path quickly, but was stopped by Cloud's voice. He didn't have to turn to know what sort of glare the chocobo was giving him…no bird should be able to look so scary at will.

"You're too nervous."

Zack plastered a grin across his face and turned around to protest, but Cloud didn't give him half a chance.

"This Gongaga is your home, isn't it?"

The disappointed glare in the mako blue eyes, surrounded as they were with black feathers…if Zack didn't know better, he'd swear it was Angeal in chocobo form looking at him for a moment.

"Sort of…yeah."

"Zack," Cloud said, far too flatly for comfort, "explain."

Zack swallowed hard and wondered if, perhaps, this was such a good idea after all.

* * *

**AN: **You know, I really expected to get further than this in this chapter. I thought I could get them all the way to the outside of Midgar - the end of Crisis Core, as it were. Silly me. I should know better by now.

A reviewer last chapter warned me to keep an eye on Zack's characterization, that while it is true that he cares loads for his friends and often put himself in harm's way for comatose Cloud, he isn't the overprotective 'mother hen' that fanfiction often paints him as in these kinds of stories. Watching CC walkthroughs, I found, did strengthen that point. I tried to better my portrayal of him in this chapter - he's still going to take care of Cloud and naturally prefers his friend unharmed, but he won't be smothering.

Cloud's proved himself too much by now for that anyhow.

By the way, that tag-team battle, short though it was, was sort of fun to write.

Now, to answer the question which I'm sure is on most minds right now:

'**No, Zack! Why? Why Gongaga? Couldn't you have left well enough alone! It's so inconvenient, going all the way down there instead of cutting straight to Midgar and avoiding all this trouble that's bound to catch up!'**

I have my reasons. Zack, for one thing, really obviously cared/worried for his parents in CC, enough that he headed straight for Gongaga once he recognized the area despite the danger he knew for a fact would be there.

On a personal level, I always hated that Zack came so close to his parents there but never got to see them or speak to them. For all we know, they've not seen each other since Zack went into Shinra...which may well have been at Cloud's age, fourteen or so. And then...never again. I wanted to give Zack that chance right here right now, I really did. So much that it hurt.

This AN has gone on long enough. I thank you all for watching this story, favoriting it, and especially for taking the time to review.

Until next time!


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